Partner

Queer Partnering

Who, in his right mind, can be against motherhood and apple pie?

Now, let me ask another question. Who in his right mind can be against love?

It seems that a lot of people, whilst paying lip service to the concept of love, aren’t doing much, if anything, to make it happen.

And I say that’s how you tell the men from the boys. Those who are grown up from those who still aren’t. Or who don’t care to do the work to grow up and out of an endless adolescence.

But back to love. Many have defined it. Including Carter Heyward. And as this fearless queer American feminist, who’s also an Episcopal priest, celebrated her birthday yesterday, let’s hear her definition. All the more so as I heartily share her views.

She’s fearless as she boldly tackles the Christian church calling it:

‘…a body-despising, woman-fearing,

sexually repressive religious tradition.’

Dr Carter Heyward

She adds that the church of which she is a member needs, not a ‘reformation’, but sooner a ‘revolutionary transformation’. (Touching Our Strength: The Erotic As Power and the Love of God, p. 47)

Fear not. I’m not turning theological on you. Not quite. But for love to bloom within the gay or queer community, as in the world at large, there needs to be a revolutionary transformation that’s just as seismic as the one Carter Heyward refers to.

First, there needs to be a realisation that love is a good, desirable thing. And that it is worth pursuing. For all the right reasons.

Also, any internalised homophobia that sees a queer expression of love as not good or valid must be rooted out of one’s thinking.

Back to the birthday girl. In Our  Passion for Justice, she also says that:

‘… loving involves commitment.

We are not automatic lovers of self, others, world, or God.

Love does not just happen’.

And in the already mentioned Touching Our Strength, she goes on about how love is:

‘…a choice — not simply, or necessarily, a rational choice, but rather a willingness to be present to others without pretense or guile.’

Yes, love is a choice. It means it’s an act of the will. All that’s needed is to act and will it into the world. To become committed to it. A quite simply challenging recipe.

But why not try it! Just like Carter Heyward herself did, in a relationship with Beverly Wildung Harrison, the woman she calls ‘my beloved friend and companion’.

And, once again, one of those tanka poems:

under the lampshade

back & forth

a moth

and what’s this thing

that draws me to love