In the Life: Ep. 1804, "Ties That Bind"

[Host Michael Billy] Coming up on "In The Life".... surviving the ex-gay movement... [Reverend Dr. Mel White] The saddest question in the world is can you be gay and Christian? [Billy] A conversation with Bishop Gene Robinson and Rabbi Sharon Kleinbaum... [Bishop Gene Robinson] I felt called by God both into the priesthood and to a life of integrity as a...as a gay man." [Billy] And faith and love in the Muslim world. [Parvez Sharma] It's about fighting but fighting for love, fighting for understanding. [Billy] All this and more on "In The Life." Documenting the people and the issues shaping the gay experience. [Narrator] "In The Life" is funded in part by The H. van Ameringen Foundation... Arcus Foundation... Newpol Foundation... The Estate of Richard W. Weiland... E. Rhodes and Leona B. Carpenter Foundation... and these funders and by the annual support of "In The Life" members like you. [Billy] Welcome to "In The Life." I'm Michael Billy. Religion is power. It shapes our lives, worldview and our political convictions. The Bible, the Quran and the Torah provides spiritual guidance, comfort and direction but those same texts are often used to promote intolerance and hatred of LGBT people. Tonight, we look at the intersection of religion and sexuality to see how gays and lesbians reconcile their faith within their religious communities. ["In The Life" main title music playing]. [Billy] In 1973 the American Psychiatric Association declared homosexuality no longer a mental illness. ln response, by the late '70s, "ex-gay ministries" were established around the country. And soon after throughout the world by evangelical Christians believing that homosexuals have no place in Christianity. Groups like Exodus attempt to reprogram LGBT people to make them heterosexual often with tragic consequences. Many who leave these programs find themselves alienated by their church and their families and even the gay community itself. [Rap music playing] "All the God's soldiers...we at war." [TV Reporter] A battle is underway in Atlanta that some say pit sexual orientation against faith. [Reverend Dr. Mel White] The ex-gay movement...is perhaps... the most dangerous movement to the gay community that there is. [Pat Robertson] Average homosexual male is not gay and happy. There, there's a dark cloud that's there. [Unidentified Woman on TV] We offer hope to people who are living homosexually who may be dissatisfied. [Rap music, continues].... "God show me the way because..." [Wayne Besen] These groups offer promises they can't deliver and deliver disasters they never promised. [Rap music, continues] "Just walk with me..." [Choir music playing]. [Besen] All the powerhouses in the religious right are behind this- Jerry Falwell when he was alive, Pat Robertson highlights their testimonies on the "700 Club" and, of course, James Dobson and "Focus on the Family" are really the nexus, the nebula of all things "ex-gay." [Michael Busse] The repetitive messages always... your broken, your damaged, you need to be fixed and I think that's a very destructive message. [Former ITL Host Katherine Linton] The ex-gay movement, a movement based on the notion that through prayer and hard work, gay people can become straight took off in the mid '70s with the formation of Exodus International. [Busse] The year after the first Exodus Conference in 1976 we began getting hundreds, thousands of letters. Gay and lesbian folks from all over the country and outside the country that had heard about us somehow. We took it of course as a sign that we were doing God's work. That for it to grow that fast it meant that it was definitely God's idea. [Moby music playing]. [Linton] Quickly, however, some former leaders of Exodus began to see that no one was truly changing but many were truly suffering. Thirty-one years after founding Exodus Michael Busse and other leaders came together to offer a public apology for their role in the movement. [Busse] Not one of the hundreds of people we counseled ever became straight. Instead many of our clients began to fall apart. One young man in our program got drunk and deliberately drove his car into a tree. Another fellow leader of the ex-gay movement told me that he had left Exodus and was now going to straight bars looking for guys to beat him up. He explained that the beatings made him feel less guilty. He was atoning for his sin. One of my most dedicated clients, Mark, took a razor blade to his genitals slashed himself repeatedly and then poured drain cleaner on the wounds because after months of celibacy he had a fall. To those people I may have harmed by my involvement in Exodus, I am truly sorry. [Linton] The damage wrought by the ex-gay movement was never so apparent than at the first ever "Ex- Gay Survivor Conference" held in Irvine, California in 2007 the same weekend that Exodus was holding their conference across town. [Music playing]. [Peterson Toscano] Uh...a good friend of mine, lesbian ex-gay survivor, we've been talking about our own experiences for the past few years on our blogs and various forums online and we've had the chance to unpack our stories but so many people don't get that chance. So we thought, "You know, we need a place for people to unpack these experiences for themselves." [Unidentified Minister] You don't have to change, they do. ["Amazing Grace" playing]. [White] The suffering that comes out of the ex-gay movement is considerable. ["Amazing Grace" playing]. [Vincent Cervantes] For me, I realized growing up in a Christian home and just being a Christian institution that it wasn't okay to like someone the same gender. ["Amazing Grace" playing]. [Dan Gonzalez] The ex-gay movement told me that same-sex relationships were false, that they were inherently disordered, that they were destructive, that they're abusive. [Toscano] We did the 12 steps- an intensive 12-step program except instead of looking at alcoholism we looked at our addiction to homosexuality and compulsive sexual behavior. ["Amazing Grace" playing]. [Cervantes] I went through an exorcism and it was terrifying. [Christine Bakke] There are these demonic powers and presences that you're going to have to sort of fight against with the help of Jesus. [White] And that leads to a kind of desperation that leads to suicide. [Cervantes] It threw me into a point then where I no longer had hope. That if not even an exorcism can get rid of this, then nothing ever will. So... I thought of suicide. [Choir music playing]. [Toscano] The thing that has amazed me is all the collateral damage I'm, I'm seeing from the ex-gay movement. [White] I tell ya, this ex-gay movement is not benign. It is very, very dangerous. [Patty Ellis] If you try to change your child, you will lose your child. You will break their spirit and you may never get them back. [Music playing]. [Linton] While the ex-gay movement fueled by the religious right has proven devastating to many individuals. The ultimate goal may be to destroy any political advances by the gay community. [Besen] This is not about changing gay people. This is about changing laws that would protect us from discrimination. [White] The ex-gay movement really comes out of fundamentalist Christianity and fundamentalist Christianity believes in a literal Bible and if you take the Bible literally it seems to say that gay and lesbian people are making a choice that's bad and if they're making a choice that's bad then why should have any civil or let alone religious rights. [John Hagee] We need a Constitutional Amendment to protect the sanctity of marriage that guarantees that in America the only marriage to be recognized is the marriage between a man and a woman. There are so many things in America that have changed that should never change. And you listen to me if it does you can kiss this country goodbye. [White] And so there you have a real conundrum for gay people who are needing and deserving of those rights but being told by religion-gone-political that they can't have them. [Linton] Yet, while the ex-gay movement shows no sign of going away their messages are being challenged like never before. [Rap music].... "God show me the way because..." [Unidentified Minister] The Church has been wrong and wrong and wrong on this issue and it's time for us to make a change. [Besen] For the first time ever we've got a variety of organizations, the "Truth Wins Out" to "Beyond Ex-Gay" and 'Soulforce," and many others having a laser-like focus on exposing, what I believe, is one of the biggest frauds perpetrated on the American people- a multi-million dollar fraud. [Unidentified Woman] God loves all of us just as he created us. [Besen] We're gonna get stories out there. We are going to be exposing some of their leaders. This may enter the legal arena. [Woman on TV] "This lawsuit is gonna work then why don't they file a lawsuit against the Lord their God." [Besen] It will be around because there are people who desperately want to believe this. However, I think, the credibility is gonna...gonna be eroding over time- slowly, slowly, slowly. [TV Reporter] "I don't know what planet you're from but you say you thank God for ideas, you thank God for 911, you thank God for dead soldiers, thank God for AIDS... I thank God that you are not a leader of a real church." [Linton] And for those still struggling with faith and sexuality Reverend White has one thing to say. [White] I've talked to gay people who have been out of the closet for 50 years and still wonder... "Can you be gay and Christian?" Isn't that sad? The saddest question in the world... "Is can you be gay and Christian?" Of course you can! God created you and loves you as you are. [Rap music] "That my feet don't fail me now." [Man talking] God's truth is marching on." [Rap music, continues] "...And I don't think that's nothing I can do now to right my wrong." "Jesus walks with me." "I want to talk to God but I'm afraid cuz we ain't spoke in so long." ["In The Life" music playing] [Billy] Sharon Kleinbaum, Rabbi of New York's largest LGBT synagogue, leads Judaism's national dialogue on social justice and gay rights. Gene Robinson, the first openly gay Bishop in the Episcopal Church, has been at the center of the church's heated debate on homosexuality. Tonight, the rabbi and the bishop discuss their spiritual journeys. [Rabbi Sharon Kleinbaum] So Gene, we know so much about you in the newspapers these days as being the first elected gay bishop in the Episcopal Church. How did you get here? [Bishop Gene Robinson] Well I...you know I grew up in a very fundamentalist congregation of the Disciples of Christ denomination. Quite by accident wound up at a college owned by the Southern Diocese of the Episcopal Church. I'd never been in an Episcopal Church in my life. And in sharp contrast to the church that I grown up in this was a religion that did not seem to worry about self protection. You know, they weren't worried about wrestling with scripture. God didn't seem to be fragile. I really liked that. At the same time I'm struggling with... being fearful that that I might be "that way." Even the word was almost unspeakable. So people were "that way" and we knew that people who were "that way" were an abomination. And by the time I got to seminary I decided that I wanted to be different. Uh...and, and actually got into therapy. I, I...probably today we would call it "reparative therapy." I didn't do anything like electroshock or, you know, "aversion therapy" but... but it was....it was clearly therapy to...uhm...enable me to, to be heterosexual. In the end, of course, it's impossible to hold that together and have any kind of internal integrity. So in an interesting sort of way my, my call to the priesthood by God is intertwined with what I perceive as God's call to "come out." [Kleinbaum] Mm-hmm. [Robinson] I felt called by God both into the priesthood and to a life of integrity as, as a gay man. How about you? How did you grow up and come to this? [Kleinbaum] I realized two things as a budding 17 year old feminist and somebody who was without consciously but certainly unconsciously dealing with uhm...my sexuality that I couldn't live with the Jewish attitude towards non-Jews; and the second piece, is that I started to really understand were the traditional Jewish perspective places women. Which kind of before that I was totally into it. I didn't even think of myself necessarily as a young woman. I was just learning and studying and very very excited and then I realized, "Hold on. What's my future, you know?" And, "What does Judaism actually think of women in this setting." And that wasn't acceptable to me. And it was that year, when I was 17, I first heard the word "lesbian." [Robinson] Yeah. [Kleinbaum] Friend of mine had a non-Jewish friend who had just told her she was a lesbian. She went to her Orthodox Rabbi to ask him whether she was allowed to still be friends with her and the Orthodox Rabbi thought and said to her 'Well... she's not Jewish. So don't worry about it. It's okay. But never, ever be alone in a room with her. [Robinson laughs]. [Kleinbaum] And I remember thinking to myself, "Wow...I think, that's me?" You know? And..."It's okay if you're not Jewish? What does that mean if I am and I'm Jewish?" [Robinson] Right. [Kleinbaum] And I went into a very deep anxiety about that. I didn't want to leave the future of Judaism in the hands of the right wing. I wanted to be a part of a Judaism that could ask questions in a sophisticated way about the meaning of life, interfaith relations, sexuality, feminism, gender issues. And I believe that Judaism was actually big enough and strong enough and that God was sophisticated enough to actually handle those kinds of questions. And I think that's a part of what distinguishes the progressive, liberal religious traditions today from some of... in our own communities, are more right wing or fundamentalists communities. I fundamentally don't believe that my religious identity is saying anything about the "lesser-than-quality" of somebody else's. [Robinson] When we look at the difference between the way gay/lesbian people are treated overseas versus here I mean...let's face it, a lot of those people are worried about eating today. [Kleinbaum] Yeah. [Robinson] This is... [Kleinbaum] Yeah. [Robinson] this is pretty far down on there... [Kleinbaum] Yeah. [Robinson] on their list of priorities when, when you're dealing with AIDS and malaria and uh... abject poverty and hunger and so on. [Kleinbuam] Genocide. [Robinson] I have from time to time really tried to hold the gay/lesbian community accountable for the, for the "isms" that...that exist... [Kleinbaum] Mm-hmm. [Robinson] in our midst. I mean... [Kleinbaum] Mm-hmm. [Robinson] you know, when I...when I hear uh...a lesbian being racist or I hear... [Kleinbaum] Mm-hmm. [Robinson] a gay man being sexist I want to just grab them and shake them and say, "Hasn't this experience taught you anything?" [Kleinbaum] Mm-hmm. [Robinson] So what do you say to a person who... who's feeling the...the....these questions for meaning in their lives... [Kleinbaum] Yeah. [Robinson] seems like religion might have the answers and yet their experience of, of organized religion has been so painful, uh...their finding it hard to make that move? What do you say to them? [Kleinbaum] The first thing to do always, in every counseling situation, is to give the person a chance to really describe what it was like. There's, there's no...there's nothing I can say before I've really heard deeply what the pain is and where it's from. And you know, in some cases, simply the fact that a rabbi is giving room for a Jewish person to express the pain and anger they have about a rabbi or the Jewish tradition, is very meaningful. [Robinson] Right, it's healing in itself. [Kleinbaum] It's healing in itself. I'm not defensive. I don't make apologies. I agree...uhm...that these were...uh...very hurtful and really inexcusable things. And that's a very important element of what I can do as a rabbi. And I feel like if people are willing to invest me with some symbolism of being....of being a leader in the Jewish community then I'm willing to use that to say, "Here's a different voice." "Here's a different way that Judaism is looking at your life and what you've gone through and who you are now." And maybe I can provide an alternative perspective, an alternative voice, another way of looking at things. But the first thing I have to do is say, "I hear you and you're right." "What you went through was really abuse at the hands of religion, or a particular rabbi or a particular service or a particular family." And, you know, that's one of the things, of course, that makes being gay very different than other "isms" in the sense of if you're black your family probably was black and so your family might be joined in a sense of fighting against racism. Or if you're Jewish and there's anti-Semitism you're sharing that with your parents but if you're a gay young person you're often fighting against your own parents, your own family, your own culture and Judaism can be used as a terrible, terrible, terrible weapon. We see that religion is taking a very very significant role in the political debates and systems around the world, what do you think? [Robinson] Well, you know, I...I feel... uh...a little bit...uh....uh...two ways about it. On the one hand...uh...I think there is an absolute important connection between my religion and my politics. That the difference is what I keep inside my house and what I take out on the street with me. So I say to...to people in our churches, for instance, the Bible is...is pretty clear about some values. Uh...probably none more important than how we treat the most vulnerable in our society. And uh...uh...there's, there's probably more about our our treatment of the poor than any...anything else in both the Hebrew and Christian scriptures. Now, when I leave my house I don't say, "That you should vote for candidate X because Jesus wants him to be the next president." What I say is, "I want to live in a culture where we take care of those who are most vulnerable." For me it's...it's because God is...says that to me but I can't say to you, "You have to think that because that's what God thinks." I think where we've seen the...uh...the misuse of that is when you have the conservative right uh...in fact taking their God out in the street and saying, "This is what God wants. We know what God wants. We know who God wants and now vote for him or her." And...and I think that's totally inappropriate. Any religion has to do with values and how we treat one another and...and every religion has to do with how we relate in community and that's really what politics is. It's about how we're gonna relate in community. What...what do you think about that? [Kleinbaum] I think you said it beautifully. ["In The Life" music playing]. [Billy] In the world of Islam, Jihad translates as a "struggle in the way of God." For gay Muslims reconciling ones homosexuality is a struggle against oppression, against tradition and fear. In our final story, director Parvez Sharma's groundbreaking film "A Jihad for Love" looks at gay and lesbian Muslims who strive to be true to their faith and themselves [Arab music playing]. [Parvez Sharma] The experience of going...growing up with religion and being tormented around what your religions says and what your body says, what your sexual desires say is... is not an experience that's unique to the Muslims in the film. [Sharma] In "A Jihad for Love," religion is really at the heart of the film and Islam happens to be the religion that the film talks about. It is really very important for me, post-September 11th, as a Muslim filmmaker to try and not represent Islam as a problematic monolith. Growing up in India I certainly was exposed to Islam in...in a lot of diversity and what I was seeking to do was to try and represent the world's fastest-growing religion uh...with all of its geographical, cultural...uh... traditional, language variations, you know, that exists. Therefore you have a gay Imam in South Africa. [Sharma] Who is essentially coming out in the film and he's...he's a father of three children. [Sharma] And on the other end of the spectrum you have the lesbian couple, one of whom is Moroccan and the other one is Egyptian, and you meet them in Egypt and they are so...they're, they're so traumatized in some ways about this conflict between their religion and their sexuality. They are so desperate to find any kind of language of affirmation about their relationship. For me, one of the most powerful scenes in the film is when Maryam is sitting with this big fat book called the "Thick of Sumha" (?) which is basically a book of legal opinions in Islam and, you know, she's sitting there and she is looking for punishment and she's crying out for punishment. [Sharma] Islam, like any other monotheistic religion, has been misinterpreted largely by men who had taken it upon themselves to reread the Quran and to construct these false hierarchies. Traditionally they're not supposed to be the voice of God. [Sharma] To win any discussion within any religion you have to kind of front the theological debate with the humanity of the lives of the people who believe in that religion and...and that's what I tried to do was put these human stories forward so that Muslims could identify with that and...and get past, if you will, some of the language in the Quran that they claim condemns homosexuality. When I started making the film I was angry. Somewhere along the way I lost my anger. It's about taking Islam back. It's about fighting but fighting for love... uh...fighting for understanding, fighting for acceptance and...and, you know, fighting for your right to be a Muslim. [Billy] Thank you for watching "In The Life." To learn more about how tonight's stories affect you and about the issues and people shaping the gay experience please visit our website at inthelifetv.org. You can also sign up for monthly airdate alerts and download past episodes 24-7. I'm Michael Billy...thanks for tuning in and please join us next month. [Robinson] Do you ever get tired of being the "gay rabbi?" [Kleinbaum] I've gotten used to it...uhm...as a label. I have to recognize that in order for history to change it takes some of us to be willing to be out there. Ironically by being rabbi at CBST, I get to talk and be engaged in many things. I find when I'm outside of CBST the only thing people want to hear me speak about or the only issue I address publicly ends up being around gay things which... okay, I recognize that's part of my role in the world and I accept it and I feel like it is a privilege to actually be saying and engaging in what I do think is the... is the great civil rights movement of our time. [Narrator] "In The Life" is funded in part by The H. van Ameringen Foundation... Arcus Foundation... Newpol Foundation... The Estate of Richard W. Weiland... E. Rhodes and Leona B. Carpenter Foundation... and these funders and by the annual support of "In The Life" members like you. [WNET Channel 13 New York station identification music]. [American Public Television station identification music].