Marriage Now

 

 

                             By Kenneth Bagnell

 

      One morning in spring 2012,  in Princeton New Jersey, a renowned psychiatrist got up very early. It was 4 A.M.  A then frail man, he still managed to make it to his desk to write a letter. It was an apology.  His name is Dr. Robert L. Spitzer, whom many regard as one of the most influential psychiatrists of the last century. His letter was historic:  he apologized to the gay community.  He’d done a study in 2001 concluding that gay people, if well-motivated, could change their orientation and become heterosexual. “I owe the gay community an apology,” he wrote “for my study making false claims of the efficacy of reparative therapy….” (It must be added that Dr. Spitzer was not “anti-gay,” in fact in the 1970s, he led in having gay orientation dropped from the authoritative “directory of disorders.”) He simply felt he’d let gay people down.

          His letter and some developments since matter greatly. For me personally,  it recalls the 1960s, when my wife Barbara and I had a friend, a Protestant minister, whose life was tortured because he was gay, his nerves wracked as he sought a “cure,” a “therapy,” or just a way of coming to terms with his life. (He’s now long deceased, a victim of early cancer.) He was a good man.  But, given the public attitude of that time — to say nothing of the law — he lived in private, at times furtive,  agony. He once intimated to a very close relative that he was attracted to men. His relative’s advice: get in your car, head for Niagara Falls and when you get there, keep going over the cliff. He went from psychiatrist to psychiatrist, but never found peace of mind.  So he never became even close to what the great minister–psychologist of London, England, Leslie Weatherhead,  once called in an interview with me in 1962:  “a well-integrated personality.” Today gay people are,  in my experience,  as well-integrated personalities as the rest of us.  That’s because you can’t be a well integrated personality unless the society you live in accepts you.  Ours now does.  I hope forever.

     Dr. Spitzer’s letter wasn’t just warranted and courageous.  Far more noteworthy is this fact: it had good consequences.  It probably helped move an organization called Exodus International — founded in the mid seventies and headquartered in Orlando, Florida — to a recent sudden and dramatic decision. (Exodus included well over 100 local ministries in the US, but also claimed some in Canada, though I can’t find evidence to back the latter.) It was strongly evangelical in perspective, dedicated one way or another to converting “gay people” into “straight people.” But this June 19th, Exodus released startling news: it was ceasing its wrong-headed efforts to change homosexuals into heterosexuals. It admitted that its approach was not just based on misguided therapy but also misguided theology.

    Exodus — amazing for American evangelicalism — even said its approach was contrary to Christian teaching. Consider a few sentences from its now former President,  Alan Chambers, on June 19th: “Please know I am deeply sorry. I am sorry for the pain and hurt many of you have experienced…. I am sorry we promoted sexual orientation change efforts and reparative theories about sexual orientation that stigmatized parents…. gay and lesbian people I know were every bit as capable of being amazing parents as the straight people I know…” And this: “For quite some time we (Exodus) have been imprisoned in a world view that’s neither honoring toward our fellow human beings, nor biblical.” And this:  “Recently, I have begun thinking again about how to apologize to the people who have been hurt by Exodus International, people who went to Exodus affiliated ministries or ministers for help only to experience more trauma…” He went on at such length he seemed on his knees in prayer seeking the forgiveness of God. Many of us in traditionally liberal churches, certainly myself,  never thought we’d hear this from an evangelical conservative spokesperson. (The fact that we’ve now heard it, should be received with humility, gratitude and hope it helps us all toward more inclusivity in our fragmented world.)

          Then,  on June 27th, as I began this blog,   the history-altering decision of the US Supreme Court came,  striking down aspects of American  law that prevented same-sex marriage. Given its wide media coverage, there’s no need to review it here other than to say the wide and favorable media coverage it received is itself a mirror that justifies what has been said here:  times have changed dramatically. The new law not only paves the way for same-sex marriage in most US states but even more important is a window on the fact that public opinion is with it. Thus the comment of Barack Obama is but an apt reflection of the citizenry: “The laws of our land are catching up to the fundamental truth that millions of Americans hold in our hearts. When all Americans are treated as equal, no matter who they are or whom they love, we are all more free.”

   Indeed.  It was no shock that the American Conference of Catholic Bishops expressed,  as is its full right,  a contrary view, calling it “a tragic day for marriage and our country.” That may not be shared by all Catholics.  For example, on May 29th, The Globe & Mail carried a lengthy obituary on a respected Catholic priest from my Nova Scotia birthplace,  Cape Breton. Father “Donnie” Campbell, who held a doctorate in education and became Dean of Arts at St. Francis Xavier,  supported , said the obituary, women priests,  married priests and same-sex marriage. I suggest that in time, the day may well come when Father “Donnie” will be seen as not just courageous , but  even better,  ahead of his time. Why? Because we have now entered one of history’s most noteworthy turns in the road.  

          Fuller inclusivity.  That is, with inevitable qualification,  the way the world is tending.  It’s mirrored in Canada by occupants of two senior positions,  one in politics, one in religion, both married: the Premier’s office of Ontario and the Moderator’s office of the United Church. And inclusivity is growing:  Canada is ranked near the top in terms of “Gay Acceptance” by the world’s most reliable research-on-religion organization, The Pew Research Centre.  One of its reports (I’m a subscriber) was published in detail  June 22nd in a full page of graphs in The National Post. There’s promise:  Canada stands third out of 39 countries studied. Spain leads,  followed by Germany  then Canada.  A few interesting revelations include these: the U.S is 14^th, Israel is 20th, China is 24^th, Jordan is 35^th.  A question to ponder:  is Canada’s growing acceptance of gay marriage furthered by its growing secularization?  As an introduction to the published Pew report reads: “There is far less acceptance of homosexuality in countries where religion is central to people’s lives.”  We can justifiably debate what that reference truly indicates.  Nonetheless,  one thing  is certain at least to me:  step by step our western world is moving in the right direction.  So was Dr. Robert Spitzer when he wrote what he did so early on a spring morning of 2012.

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All past blogs are archived on my website: your comments are welcome here: www.kennethbagnell.com.