The other day I had the opportunity to see a truly moving new documentary, “For the Bible Tells Me So,” as part of D.C.’s gay and lesbian filmfest, Reel Affirmations. The film explores five different Christian evangelical families coming to terms with their gay or lesbian children (featuring political candidate Dick Gephardt’s stunning lesbian daughter, Chrissy Gephardt, and her role as an out family member during his campaigns.)

Go see this if you can; although I personally wished that Jewish families, too, had been part of the focus, I appreciated the cameos from supportive clergy debunking popular ideas about biblical intolerance. One woman points out, “Scripture also says you must give away all your money to the poor,” a clever jab at televangelists’ hypocrisy and their failure to follow all commandments equally. There’s also a nice clip from that famous West Wing episode where Martin Sheen asks a homophobic Biblical literalist how much he can charge to sell his daughter into slavery, and how to arrange a ritual stoning, ancient practices supported on other pages of scripture. But the film also demonstrates, with the tragic suicide of one young lesbian, the deadly consequences of powerful “Christian” leaders urging families to reject their children’s gay lifestyles. 

I thought about the two times, now, that I actually stood in the great theatre of Ephesus where Paul allegedly addressed the Ephesians [5:21] and made his famous declaration, “Wives, be subject to your husbands.” How much pain has THAT one line caused? Anyone remember the Olivia cruise in July 2000 when Cris Williamson stood in that same acoustically perfect ampitheatre and sang a lesbian lullaby to all of us? That was a great reminder to old St. Paul that times change, man! Check it out! Most of us aren’t even wearing bras, let along covering our heads in your church! We confront, redefine, and reinvent our spirituality as women-loving travelers.

But staying sane in a world packed with religious literalists of all stripes is a tough burden. I teach at Georgetown part time, a “Jesuit Ivy” struggling to respect the needs and demands of GLBT students while toeing the line of Vatican disapproval. Talk about a mess. I’m out as a big homo on that campus, and no one’s ever wagged a finger of shame, but I’m also not in line for tenure, so I can afford to wear rainbow-enhanced blazers to teach in.

Sharing the history of the global gay rights movement with brand-new students is a trip. Some arrive from indescribably repressed parochial schools: once, a student told me her experience with sex education consisted of an elderly friar lecturing her class that eating Graham crackers would help them get rid of teenage sexual desire. I haven’t touched a Graham cracker since. 

Kevin Jennings, the founder of GLSEN [the gay, lesbian and straight educators’ network], himself raised in a fundamentalist home, has often lectured on ways to find common ground with the religious right: specifically, can we all agree that school violence is bad? And kids who beat classmates up should be disciplined? Yes? Then everyone’s responsible for ending the playground bullying of gay kids. Never mind biblical interpretation: bullying has to go. That’s been a start for some communities to see how church-sponsored hate can spawn real consequences of street violence against gay-perceived kids.

At both GWU and Georgetown, I show “The Burning Times,” a film illustrating centuries of church-sponsored witch trials. That misuse of religion shakes my young women’s studies students to their core: especially the reminder of how women turned on one another, sparing their own reputations by accusing a neighbor. Too often, that’s  echoed in today’s school halls; calling a classmate GAY deflects attention away from your own crush on Melissa.

Standing in a Georgetown lecture hall as an out Jewish lesbian, in the shadow of the crucifix mounted above every classroom’s blackboard, I’m aware I may offend as I talk about the historical context of St. Paul, witch burnings, Vatican homophobia. But these aren’t times to remain silent. And as it turns out, I’m out and proud on the same campus as Chrissy Gephardt, who’s now busy speaking her mind in Georgetown Law School.