Thread by @Personhoodlives

Pulling together some basic thoughts on how to best be a “Side-B Ally”, or someone who affirms their traditional sexual ethic and wants to best love LGBTQ Christian siblings (and also LGBTQ people in general

Rough thread:

1. Recognize that processing and coming to theological conclusion is an extremely excruciating process for sexual minorities. Give them space to process it with God and walk with them as they need it. It’s more complicated than you think it is.

2. Don’t fight us on our identity language. We need to be able to talk about ourselves, our experiences, and the group of people who also experience these things. We aren’t slipping away from Jesus by using gay

3. Don’t use our story for your agenda. If a sexual minority marries the opposite sex, good for them! That’s their story. It doesn’t mean they’re straight and it doesn’t mean everyone should do the same. Ditto with using SSA rather than gay. Ditto for acting “more straight”

4. Similarly, please don’t pray that we find a spouse. That’s just…really harmful and reinforces both the idolatry of marriage and exgay rhetoric. Let us figure it out with God.

5. Structure your life in such a way that you can accommodate for and do life with single people. This is good for everyone, but especially for celibate gay people who often really feel fearful of loss of any intimacy or community

6. Don’t treat us like or tell us we’re “not like other gay people”. Especially don’t imply that gay people are different people who live a anti-church different lifestyle. We’re LGBTQ. There’s no certain LGBTQ lifestyle.

7. Love us even if we end up not being one of “the good gays” who lives a theologically conservative life. Different relationships (accountability partner, mentor) call for different responses to theological shifts, but most often it’s best to lead with open handed love.

8. It’s okay to affirm the traditional sexual ethic. I do. But please do not conflate being gay with being sinful. That’s not true. Love us by understanding that our orientation is not our theology or actions.

9. Please hug us still. Gay people sometimes feel like lepers in Christian community because people (often of the same sex) stop touching them or demonstrating any intimacy. This is devastating.

10. Call out homophobia when you hear it. It’s sinful and unprofitable. Your gay jokes are not worth the lives of gay people.

11. Respect pronouns and names. It’s really that simple. It’s not a theological statement of belief, it’s simply giving a yes to someone who’s heard so many no’s. Continue your relationship by loving.

12. Don’t playfully use slurs or tokenize. Sometimes wanting to be an ally means you make edgy jokes or refer to people as your “gay friend”. It doesn’t make us feel like we belong. It’s objectifying. Just talk it out with your friends

13. If someone is sorting through their theology sort through it *with* them rather than frantically trying to convince them. This could be a really strengthening journey.

14. Platforming exgay proponents can be really really hurtful. So can platforming “biblical” masculinity or femininity people who have often pushed stereotypes that have done harm in our lives. Again, conversations help with this

15. Consider your accommodations at church. Do you have a gender neutral bathroom so everyone feels comfortable at church? Do you ever mention single/celibate people in sermons or Bible studies? Have you ever explored heteronormativity and how it can exclude sexual minorities?

16. Kindness rules, even when you’re not totally sure you get something. Also ask when you don’t get it (to the people you’re in relationship with). Communication is good.

17. Sex/marriage/porn etc. are things that we should talk about at church, too, but are you considering sexual minorities when you have these conversations?

18. Don’t “Out” people without their permission. It’s awful and it hurts.

19. When someone comes out, it does not need to be paired with a conversation on ethics whether you’re at church or elsewhere, instead focus on this monumental self-disclosure and allow the other conversations to happen later

20. The Gospel is not anti-gay. When it comes to sexual ethics it’s not about people’s sexuality that precludes whether they can have sex or not. Sex has an intended purpose, and not everyone needs to or will participate. That’s okay. Love is not off limits for anyone though.

21. Yes, please do reassure someone that you still love them the same after they come out, and then commit to also allowing their uniqueness to shine through in your relationship with them.

22. Please please please stop comparing homosexuality to beastiality and incest likes it’s some sort of gotcha. That really misses the mark.

23. Be open and clear about your sexual ethics as a church, but please, your only sermon on homosexuality should not be one running through the clobber passages.

There’s so much more but it’s late and I was just adding these on the fly. What do you think? What would you add?

24. Sexuality is a spectrum. Some people experience incidental SSA and don’t know how to talk about it. Bisexual isn’t 50/50. Asexual people aren’t broken or incomplete. Experiencing a shift in attractions is physiologically possible, but we don’t have control over it.

25. Trust us! Trust us that we’re celibate. Or that we experience the attractions or dysphoria that we do. Trust us that our SSA doesn’t mean we will leave our spouse or become a predator.

26. If someone doesn’t really want to talk about their sexuality, that’s okay to. It’s not appropriate to push people to be open about something so you have a good testimony being shared.

27. Have you ever created the space in your church for someone to share this sort of thing? Are people feeling isolated and unsure that the can be open? Perhaps it’s time to get rid of the ambiguity

28. “That’s gay” is inherently negative and is unacceptable. Same with other “meaningless” statements that denigrate sexual or gender minorities.

29. Gay people exist. So do gay partnered people. It really makes no sense for you to skip media with “gay characters” when you’re certainly watching people sin in a litany of other ways through media.