Canadian Mennonite
Volume 12, No. 5
March 3, 2008
CMU holds homosexuality forum
WINNIPEG
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Can Christians talk about homosexuality without ending up in conflict? A Jan. 28 forum at Canadian Mennonite University (CMU) showed they can.
The forum, entitled “A Dialogue on Homosexuality,” featured Tye Gamey, a former openly gay man who believes that homosexuals can change, and Val Warkentin, who runs a Christian support group for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered people.
Gamey began the discussion, describing how growing up he knew he was different. “I had a strong attraction to other guys,” he told the forum, adding it caused him all sorts of problems in high school. “I was called queer, a fag, a sissy,” he said. “Each time it felt like a dagger in my heart. What was worse, nobody tried to stop it. It was very hurtful.”
In his last year of high school, Gamey became a Christian and, after graduation, went to Bible college. His attraction to men didn’t go away, but there was nowhere to turn to talk about it. The only thing he heard at church and college was that it was wrong. “The church was very judgmental,” he said.
Lonely and confused, he found acceptance in Winnipeg’s gay community and lived an openly gay lifestyle. But, he said, “the Spirit of God kept bringing me back” to the idea that he could change, if he wanted to. At first, he thought that was impossible, but later he came to believe that “same-sex activity was not God’s plan for my life.”
Today, Gamey directs Living Waters, which describes itself as “a community-based, Christ-centred discipleship ministry that deals specifically with relational and sexual brokenness.”
“I once lived as an openly gay man, but no longer,” he said, noting that today he is married to an opposite-sex partner. “There is hope to change for those who desire it.”
Warkentin’s journey with the issue of same-sex attraction began in 1997, when her daughter came out of the closet and announced that she was gay. At first, Warkentin was overcome with fear and guilt, worrying that her daughter would be “tormented and rejected.” Stories in the media of gay people being killed, or killing themselves, didn’t help, she said
She decided not to make her daughter’s road “harder than it needs to be,” she told the forum. “She is part of me. I am part of her. I love her fiercely.” But when she went to church for solace and support, it felt cold and lonely; people there didn’t want to talk about same-sex attraction. Warkentin withdrew emotionally from church and joined a support group for parents of gays and lesbians. “How sad, I thought, that I cannot go to a church for support like this,” she said of her experience.
But Warkentin has returned to church, to engage it in the issue. Today, she runs a support group out of Bethel Mennonite Church in Winnipeg, describing it as a place “for people who need a safe place to talk about sexuality.”
“My story is one of struggle and acceptance,” she said, “but also of joy and celebration. I can’t believe that God condemns homosexual behaviour as such. The gift of sexuality remains a mystery to me, like many other gifts from God.”
Like Gamey, Warkentin’s daughter is also now married to an opposite-sex partner. But Warkentin told the forum that her daughter doesn’t consider this a cure for homosexuality. For her, “gender has no place in the realm of love.”
Gamey and Warkentin were asked about whether the old saying, “Love the sinner, but hate the sin,” applied to gay people.
“I tell people never to say that,” said Gamey. “It doesn’t communicate love and hope. It just passes judgment on their behaviour.”
Warkentin agreed. “Hate is such a strong word,” she said. “The person is always more important.”
They were also asked if people who disagree about homosexuality can co-exist in the church. “Yes, they can,” said Gamey, adding, though, that he could not condone “any sexual activity outside of a committed heterosexual and monogamous relationship.”
For Warkentin, it’s important to “dialogue with each other over issues we don’t understand. Discussion should create openness. . . . The most important thing is to be far less judgmental.”