The Conditional Welcome of Welcoming Churches: a Warning to Queer Folk

Read the fine print.

It’s the first Sunday of Pride Month, and liberal, mainline churches across the country are starting to fly their rainbow flags and post images of their rainbow logos onto every social media platform.

As a queer, former clergy-person in one such church, I feel compelled to say something to my fellow queer folk out there.

I don’t know if you’ll read this, but I feel like someone needs to warn you.

I worry that you might see the flags and logos and get the impression that these churches have the capacity, skill, and desire to fully embrace you and your queer relationships, however they present, and that you might invest yourself in belonging to these communities without fully understanding the conditional terms of their welcome.

I worry that you will get hurt by a liberal church just as you were hurt by a conservative church, but that the liberal hurt will feel like even more of a betrayal because of the Pride™️ promises of welcome.

My concern is informed by my experience and by the experience of close friends of mine who’ve been alienated by a church they thought had fully embraced them.

I don’t want this to happen to you.

So, let me explain a few things about the conditional welcome of one welcoming church — my former tradition, The Episcopal Church — that you won’t read about in any of its Pride™️ posts.

1+1 = Holiness

In The Episcopal Church, clergy are to be thought of as set apart and held to a ‘higher standard” of holiness. This isn’t just hyperbole. It’s written in the church’s legal documents, the Canons. Clergy are to be an example of the ideal.

So, looking at the expectations for clergy helps everyone to understand what a given tradition holds as its ideal.

Clergy in The Episcopal Church must be monogamous in their romantic and sexual relationships. Monogamy is the ideal. The Episcopal Church has allowed for gays, lesbians, and bisexuals to be ordained, but if we are oriented toward relationship in any way other than monogamy we will be expected to forgo that orientation in favor of the ideal.

In the church’s eyes, orientation pertains only to gender and not to configuration of relationship.

If you are someone who understands themself to be polyamorous—if you are oriented to love more than one person or have developed agreements in your relationships that allow for the love or sexual enjoyment of more than one person—you cannot be a clergy-person in The Episcopal Church. At least, you cannot be open about your orientation or your relationships. You will be subject to disciplinary action. This is because the church views monogamy as the ideal expression of holiness in romantic and sexual relationships.

In this way, the Liberal Church and the Conservative Church have the same sexual ethic.

The Liberal Church may have a different ethic about gender, as it allows for cis women and trans people to be clergy and for two people of any gender expression to be married in the church, but it has the same fundamental ethic about sex: monogamy is the ideal. It is the only expression of holiness in matters of romantic and sexual relationships.

If you don’t see this is a problem, then you may find yourself at home in The Episcopal Church, and in other liberal Christian denominations that hold the same views on holiness.

If you’re a gay, lesbian, or bisexual person who has always dreamed of getting married, or finding that one true love who can be your exclusive sexual partner for the rest of your life, then these traditions will affirm your relationship and your orientation. Their rules will mirror your values, and their ideal will offer you a sense of belonging.

But if that isn’t you…

If you’re a queer person who manages their romantic and sexual relationships on a Google calendar…

If you’re a queer person who is raising your children with three or more partners…

If you are a queer person who makes intricate agreements about intimacy that ensure you and your partner(s) will be cared for and nurtured in the ways that you determine are best for you, and if those agreements foster transparent, vulnerable communication that strengthens your relationship(s)…

If you enjoy sex with lots of different people…

If you’re anything other than a monogamous, hetero-presenting person…

Be warned.

You do not fit the ideal. The way you approach sex and relationships is fundamentally at odds with the sexual ethic of the welcoming church that just handed you a rainbow-saturated pamphlet at Pride.

It’s entirely possible, and probably likely, that the tradition behind that pamphlet is currently disciplining a queer, poly clergy-person for having a relationship that looks a lot like yours.

This isn’t hyperbole, either. As I write this post, on the first Sunday of Pride Month, The Episcopal Church is actively disciplining at least one clergy-person for being poly. They won’t tell you about that at Pride, and many well-meaning church goers—queers and allies, alike—don’t even know it’s happening.

I say “at least one” because the church is not transparent about its disciplinary proceedings.

This brings me to another of The Episcopal Church’s ideals: silence.

Silence = Death Holiness

When an episcopal clergy-person is disciplined for being polyamorous or having a consensual romantic or sexual relationship that deviates from the church’s ideal of monogamy, that person is subject to a process of disciplining, silencing, and alienation.

They will likely be fired or put on leave for an undetermined amount of time. They may be forcibly removed from their community and banned from speaking to any other Episcopalian about their relationship(s). They may be given an ultimatum to abandon all romantic or sexual relationships except the one that the church recognizes as valid. The church will not entertain conversations about whether or not this is ethical, nor will it provide any clear direction about how to sever ties with your partners, who may, in your eyes and in the mind of your family, be the parents of your children.

None of this will be done publicly. This will be done in private, and it will be facilitated by lawyers. The donations of churchgoers will pay the church’s lawyers, but the poly clergy-person will not be provided council. They will have to pay for it out of their own pocket, which may become increasingly difficult now that they are no longer able to work. [Side note: episcopal clergy are not allowed to obtain work outside the church without the expressed permission of their bishop, who is also the person presiding over the disciplinary process.]

Episcopal bishops will march this year in their city’s Pride Parade while at the same time penalizing queer clergy-people whose relationships present in ways that may seem completely normal, natural, and ethical to many people in the crowd.

They will assure you that you are welcome.

But know this: it is a conditional welcome.

Perhaps you can live with those conditions. Maybe you may have read everything I’ve written and think, “Well, I don’t think I’ll ever be clergy so this doesn’t apply to me.”

If so, take the pamphlet.

But please, read the fine print.