Bridges Across the Divide
Submitted by Heather on May 02 1999 at 22:38:19
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I've hesitated about posting this, because I have a strong love for Bridges Across the Divide – I think they're a marvellous organization, doing an incredibly difficult job of conducting dialogue about homosexuality between people with very different views. The conversations that take place in their forums are models for civility, and I hope they will continue to thrive and flourish as the years go on, and that others will take note of what they're doing and imitate their work (whether the dispute be over homosexuality or any other sensitive topic). I finally decided that enough positive activities had taken place that I could post the latest news from Bridges Across without sounding as though I were ringing death bells. In February 1998, as some of you know, I innocently started a thread at BA about boylove just a few hours after I visited a celibate boylover's site for the first time – I asked whether Bridges Across would welcome a celibate boylover as a member. This was more than asking, "Would somebody with those sexual desires be welcome at BA?" because BA has never had any policy barring particular classes of people from membership, and it never will. The question was whether boylovers could share their "journeys," a word BA uses to describe life-stories that members post in order to describe how their views on homosexuality developed. All of the members of BA are encouraged to post these life-stories, whether they're gay or not. The initial replies to my post were positive, but then (largely due to my own innocence at that time in realizing how sensitive a topic this is for many people) the conversation took a turn for the worse, and ultimately the thread was declared off-topic, since Bridges Across is devoted to the discussion of homosexuality between adults. The conversation continued in private, though, as a few of us continued to struggle with the question of whether boylovers should be allowed to share their journeys at BA. Ultimately, the decision was made to give it a try, and so a celibate boylover who had expressed interest in joining BA did so. It didn't work out – I think there were a number of mistakes made on all sides, so I'm not inclined to place all of the blame on the BA members who were upset the boylover's posts about his journey. I know that my own tact in this matter was notably lacking. At any rate, the boylover withdrew last fall, and matters remained in limbo until a few days ago, when the steering committee of BA ultimately made the decision that, while a certain amount of discussion of off-topic subjects could take place (including occasional discussions about intergenerational sex in relation to homosexuality), boylovers' journeys were just too volatile a subject for BA to handle at this point in its life. (Incidentally, recovering offenders' journeys have been barred as well.) Some of the committee members expressed sorrow that this decision was made, but felt that it was the only one that could be made overall, given how strongly some of the members felt about this. I had quit BA last spring while the decision was being made whether to allow boylovers to participate, and I quit again following the latest decision, this time asking that my journeys introduction be removed from the site. As I told the people at BA who passed on this decision, I know that others would make a different choice, but I didn't feel at all comfortable with this "don't ask, don't tell" policy and didn't feel I could remain a member any more. What this long controversy tells me is two things: that it will take a long and hard struggle before many nonpedophiles are willing to listen to the stories of boylovers, and that some nonpedophiles are already willing to listen to those stories, despite their uneasiness with this topic. One of the BA members who was most supportive of the boylover's participation last year is a child sexual abuse survivor; two others who gave strong support were people who are opposed to homosexuality, and one of them has been feeding me a steady and interesting stream of information about boylove since that time So, despite this initial defeat, I've come out of this dispute believing that hard work and love can achieve a great deal, and that the day will ultimately come when a large portion of us nonpedophiles will be ready to listen to boylovers and exchange ideas with you, learning from each other's experiences. Heather [The ideals of Bridges Across the Divide, as expressed by the moderator of Bridges Across's Faith Forum, Bob Buehler, during the same week that I posted my first message about boylove. Rev. Buehler is Side C (neutral) on the issue of homosexuality.] We've identified lots of ways of talking about the divide, and have discovered that there really are many divides. Right now I want to talk about two of them, which I will define under the terms of Message and Method. The Message divide: same-gender behavior is/is not outside the Creator's intent; same-gender relationships do/do not have the same validity as heterosexual relationships. This is the a/b divide as originally defined for our bridges-across conversations. SideA: There are people from many backgrounds who for religious or other reasons believe that homosexual relationships have the same value as heterosexual relationships. SideB: And there are those of many faiths who disagree, believing that only a male/female relationship in marriage is the Creator's intent for our sexuality. But there is another divide which exists within both camps, and that divide I will term Method. Here's the Method divide, and at the risk of getting into toxic levels of alphabet soup I'll call it side D and side E. D: The proper approach to people on the other side is to denounce them, avoid them, keep them away from the children, name them as dangerously evil and do whatever must be done to either change them or silence them. Government should be called in at some level to make sure this happens. E: The proper approach to people on the other side is to recognize their humanity, try to hear them, love them, learn where their pain is, and stand in solidarity with them as human beings in opposition to the approach taken by D. The difference between these two is the difference between coercion and openness, fear and love, control and vulnerability, violence and nonviolence. In my opinion, the way of Jesus brings us to E. It seems to me that Bridges Across is really about doing evangelism to convert people, not from A to B or vice versa, but from D to E. We do recruit. We do agree about method. We do disagree with people on both sides whose methods conform more to D. At the heart of bridges-across is a peculiar set of notions that sets us apart from many on side A and side B. This set of notions is grounded in the teachings of Jesus; it is exemplified by the stance he took alongside the adulterous woman against an angry mob, putting himself in harm's way on behalf of the accused and despised. It is espoused by many biblical passages, most notably I Corinthians 13 which talks about the parameters of love. Love your enemies, Jesus says. Do good to them that hate you, he says. Refuse to judge them, he says somewhere else. Whoever our opponents are, be they gays, pro-gays, militant homosexuals, ex-gays, fundamentalists, FOF, FRC, ACLU, PFOX, PFLAG, or those miserable wishy-washy sideC'ers who won't take a stand on either side – this is the standard. |