Gareth Thomas is an example of why the church should be ashamed of itself. You’ve probably never heard of him. He is a recently retired rugby player from Wales whose prowess on the field earned him honors equivalent to being a Hall of Fame NFL player. Rugby is a rough sport with the reputation of being the roughest team sport in the world. It is described as playing professional football without pads. Broken bones, dislocated joints, and knocked out teeth are common. Gareth Thomas had his share.
But he will be remembered as a player for more than his injuries or accomplishments. That is because three years before he retired he did something that shook the foundations of the rugby world. He acknowledged publicly that he was gay. Predictably, the game after his admission he was greeted by a group of supporters for the opposing team with slurs and name calling you would expect from such a bunch. He said he expected as much. But then he found himself as shocked as his teammates were when he went public with his admission. The league publicly rebuked the behavior of these fans, the team he played against did the same thing, and then went a step further and banned these people from any of its future games. Tears welled up in his eyes as he told this story to Bernard Goldberg of Bryant Gumbel’s Real Sports aired on HBO television.
One of the most moving moments in the interview was when Gareth Thomas said that at one point in his life he would go to church weekly and pray for God to help him. Goldberg asked him what he asked God to do. He answered, “To make me straight.”
It was at that point that I knew the church should be ashamed of itself. It was certainly the last straw for me. I cannot find words adequate to explain my visceral reaction to hearing this incredible man tell his story. But the one thing I can say is that I knew for sure I was done with giving any credence to all the reasons churches and Christians use to justify treating gays and lesbians as if they are flawed or less than normal. Even a rugby league in Europe does better than the church in its attitude and actions toward a gay player. Gareth Thomas said that growing up he felt like something was wrong with him, that he was ashamed of who he was to the point of pretending he was straight, then feeling like a complete fraud (his own word) for doing so. He seriously considered suicide. That’s what the church did to him, and as I minister, I am ashamed. The church can do better. It ought to do better. It simply must do better.
With every fiber of my being I believe the Gareth Thomas story should be the last straw for everyone of us who believes in love and justice and God and everything that is holy. We should wait not another minute in saying to people – maybe even loved ones – that there is no excuse reasoned enough, no scripture text sacred enough, no fear of social consequences deep enough, to justify the kind of discrimination and persecution of gays and lesbians that exists today in the church. Past generations didn’t know what we know, that sexual orientation is not a choice, that it is a genetic disposition. We should tell them – perhaps gently but also firmly- that to refuse to believe the science makes one guilty of intentional ignorance. That Gareth Thomas is who he is was not, is not, and never could be a choice. That makes all the difference in the debate – all the difference. There simply is no excuse that can justify the harm the church’s views and actions toward homosexual persons have done and continue to do. None.
So here’s the challenge. If you are a Christian who is silent in your church that insists on perpetuating the myth that sexual orientation is a choice and gays and lesbians can be made straight, that dares to justify itself on the basis of a discredited misuse of scripture, you stand with all the Christians in the old south who did the same thing when their churches justified their treatment of blacks in the same way. If you are a minister who makes no effort to confront this issue in your congregation, who is afraid of what might happen to you if you do, you stand with all those clergy in the segregated south who were afraid to speak against segregation and discrimination. There are times when Christians must speak, must act, must risk for the sake of love and in the name of justice. This is such a time. This is one of the major defining issues of our time, make no mistake about it. All of us must ask ourselves how history will judge us, how our children and grandchildren will. I know how I want to be judged, what I hope my children and grandchildren will think of what I said and did. What about you?
