Coming-Out Day 2019
Preached 10/13/2019 at SouthWest UU in N. Royalton OH
By Rev. Meg Mathieson
Here are some actual things that I have been told:
I want to warn you that these are some hurtful words.
Gay people hate themselves.
I know what lesbians look like, and you are definitely not one.
There is nothing you could ever say or do to convince me that you are gay.
I know you say you are gay, but since you used to be married to a man, I think you’re bisexual.
Gay men are self-destructive.
Don’t befriend a gay man, they are dirty.
Lesbians don’t enjoy sex, they just do it for political reasons.
Sure, everyone wishes they could be gay, but it’s just not practical.
Your kids must be really messed up.
Referring to our kids: Which one of you is their mom? (Hint: we both are.)
(From a therapist) People attracted to the same sex have a difficult relationship with their same-sex parent.
(From another therapist) People attracted to the same sex want to have sex with their same-sex parent.
It’s not love. You are trying to co-opt the word “love.”
When I was in high school in the early 90’s, a Dominican nun told us that gay sex was bad, but the worse sin was the lesbian’s emotional transgression, an unholy mixture of relationships - sisterly, mothering, best friend, and sexual partner. Disgusting.
I remember the all-girls classroom response: Ew.
I still remember every tiny anti-gay insult that my parents casually threw out over the course of my life. I remember my dad, a minister, bragging about refusing to allow a bride’s sister to serve as her maid of honor because the sister was an “unrepentant lesbian.”
I remember.
I remember not understanding why it was funny that Ross’s wife left him for a woman.
I remember my family gathering together to watch “The Ellen Show” because she was so relatable and funny. And I remember the fury and never watching it again after she came out. “She just wants attention.”
Of course she does! She’s on a TV show with her own name! She’s unrepentant!
My name is Meg and I am an unrepentant lesbian.
It’s bizarre to me that others feel that they have the right to weigh in on my marriage. I’ve been married to a man and I’m now married to a woman and I’ll tell you, the two marriages had a lot in common: We were confused about how to do taxes, we ran up credit cards, we took care of children, we argued and we picked out pumpkins in October. But there was is one major, major difference between my marriage now (which is a “gay marriage”) and my first marriage (which, inexplicably, is not called a “hetero marriage,” but was just a marriage.) And that is this:
We are both happy.
We are equals.
Nobody is in this marriage because they feel that they have to.
Nobody is trapped in this marriage because they are afraid of the societal repercussions of leaving, of being authentic.
Nobody in this marriage is repentant.
We are a couple of unrepentant lesbians. And we watch Netflix and we argue about which way the toilet paper roll goes, and we eat ice cream, and we are unrepentant about all of it.
And we are happy.
Preached 10/13/2019 at SouthWest UU in N. Royalton OH
By Rev. Meg Mathieson
Here are some actual things that I have been told:
I want to warn you that these are some hurtful words.
Gay people hate themselves.
I know what lesbians look like, and you are definitely not one.
There is nothing you could ever say or do to convince me that you are gay.
I know you say you are gay, but since you used to be married to a man, I think you’re bisexual.
Gay men are self-destructive.
Don’t befriend a gay man, they are dirty.
Lesbians don’t enjoy sex, they just do it for political reasons.
Sure, everyone wishes they could be gay, but it’s just not practical.
Your kids must be really messed up.
Referring to our kids: Which one of you is their mom? (Hint: we both are.)
(From a therapist) People attracted to the same sex have a difficult relationship with their same-sex parent.
(From another therapist) People attracted to the same sex want to have sex with their same-sex parent.
It’s not love. You are trying to co-opt the word “love.”
When I was in high school in the early 90’s, a Dominican nun told us that gay sex was bad, but the worse sin was the lesbian’s emotional transgression, an unholy mixture of relationships - sisterly, mothering, best friend, and sexual partner. Disgusting.
I remember the all-girls classroom response: Ew.
I still remember every tiny anti-gay insult that my parents casually threw out over the course of my life. I remember my dad, a minister, bragging about refusing to allow a bride’s sister to serve as her maid of honor because the sister was an “unrepentant lesbian.”
I remember.
I remember not understanding why it was funny that Ross’s wife left him for a woman.
I remember my family gathering together to watch “The Ellen Show” because she was so relatable and funny. And I remember the fury and never watching it again after she came out. “She just wants attention.”
Of course she does! She’s on a TV show with her own name! She’s unrepentant!
My name is Meg and I am an unrepentant lesbian.
It’s bizarre to me that others feel that they have the right to weigh in on my marriage. I’ve been married to a man and I’m now married to a woman and I’ll tell you, the two marriages had a lot in common: We were confused about how to do taxes, we ran up credit cards, we took care of children, we argued and we picked out pumpkins in October. But there was is one major, major difference between my marriage now (which is a “gay marriage”) and my first marriage (which, inexplicably, is not called a “hetero marriage,” but was just a marriage.) And that is this:
We are both happy.
We are equals.
Nobody is in this marriage because they feel that they have to.
Nobody is trapped in this marriage because they are afraid of the societal repercussions of leaving, of being authentic.
Nobody in this marriage is repentant.
We are a couple of unrepentant lesbians. And we watch Netflix and we argue about which way the toilet paper roll goes, and we eat ice cream, and we are unrepentant about all of it.
And we are happy.