Recently a number of mainstream religious groups have done things that call into question even more starkly their acceptance of gays and lesbians among their ranks. In July, still in the midst of its own sex scandals, the Vatican released a document reiterating its opposition to same-sex unions and adoptions, essentially demanding that Catholic politicians voice their opposition to — and vote against — any pro-gay legislation. At its General Convention in August, the Episcopal Church approved the consecration of an openly gay, non-celibate bishop. But, in the midst of the debate, several groups of Episcopalians have threatened to divide the Church. At the United Methodist Church’s General Conference that same month, delegates voted to continue the church’s ban on same-sex unions. Meanwhile, over the past several years governments and local authorities in heavily Islamic parts of the world have tried, convicted and sometimes tortured gays and lesbians for allegedly offending public morality, widely-held interpretations of the Koran and the sayings of Muhammad.

So, while more than 60 percent of gays and lesbians in the United States consider themselves members of a particular religion (according to the results of a survey by GLCensus Partners released in early August), it’s hardly surprising that only 38 percent of gays and lesbians practice the religion they profess. It might even be more surprising that gays and lesbians are as active as they are — after all, church attendance ranged from only 36 to 49 percent of all adult Christians in the early 1990s, according to the American Religious Identification Survey. In spite of the ways in which religion — and traditional religion, in particular — may not always be accepting of gays and lesbians, there are many in our community who not only draw strength from their religious convictions and commitments, but also feel an obligation to make a difference in those religious communities that are not accepting of gays and lesbians.

It is just such a feeling of responsibility that keeps Patrick McArron in the Catholic Church. In 1972, McArron founded the local chapter of DignityUSA (www.dignityusa.org), an organization for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender Catholics. McArron is currently the National President of Dignity. DignityUSA was originally founded in 1969 as both a social and self-help group for gay Catholics by Patrick Nidorf, a priest from San Diego — though most of Dignity’s initial members were based in Los Angeles.

“Dignity caught on like wildfire,” recalled McArron. “The people were just crazy about it; they thought this is great. This was their first opportunity back in 1969 to get together with like-minded guys who happened to be Catholic and gay.”

In the years since its formation, Dignity has transformed itself from a mere social group into one with an agenda for changing the face and teachings of the Catholic Church. This change in focus is reflected in something McArron himself says. When asked why he’s still a Catholic in the face of his Church’s rejection of gays and lesbians, he replied, “I don’t need the Catholic Church, but the Catholic Church needs me and people like me.”

This dedication to making an impact in the Catholic Church — even in the face of rejection — has been a part of McArron’s religious life since early on. As a young man, he spent a year and a half studying for the priesthood with a religious order, after having been refused by the San Diego diocese because those in charge suspected that he had “homosexual tendencies.” Ultimately his time in the seminary ended for the same reasons, with the seminary’s proctor telling McArron that he had to leave the seminary, for reasons he would not disclose. McArron recalled that the proctor told him he would figure out for himself later why he was being asked to leave. “I asked the priest for a favor then. I told him that the next time he told someone he had to leave the seminary, he should give him a reason.”

For McArron, the way in which this priest handled his dismissal from the seminary is symptomatic of the Catholic Church’s treatment of sexuality. Even though the Vatican and bishops issue statements about their view of sexual morality, there is an air of secrecy about sexual matters, an environment many cite as having contributed to the Catholic Church’s history of hidden sexual abuse.

Part of Dignity’s current mission is to force open discussion of sex, sexual orientation and other matters of social justice, as well as to hold the Vatican and Church leaders accountable for their actions. For instance, in the wake of the Vatican’s statement against same-sex unions, Dignity issued a statement reminding the Church of its commitment to the proposition that God is love and reminding Catholic politicians of their commitment as Americans to the equal creation and equal protection of all citizens. They have also been at the forefront of the fight within the Church to prevent gays from becoming the scapegoats of the sexual abuse scandal.

“We told the bishops that banning gay men from the priesthood was unacceptable,” said McArron. “That idea has more or less gone away.” This demonstrates the way in which Dignity continues to have an impact on the Catholic Church, even though it has been banned as a group from any Church-owned property since the Vatican issued a letter in October of 1986. “The bishops thought we would disappear at some point, and they wouldn’t have to deal with us anymore — but we haven’t disappeared and we’ve become more vocal,” McArron said, noting that the Church has had to more or less come to terms with Dignity, and listen to what the group has to say.

“Dignity’s relationship with the Church is sometimes contentious, because of our outspokenness, but we engage in dialogue with the bishops whenever we can,” added McArron. “The relationship is good because there’s been some dialogue, but there’s never enough. The hierarchy is standing its ground and they don’t like to be challenged, but that’s what we do.”

Speaking for himself, McArron explained his continued involvement with Dignity and the Church, stating, “I could have walked away from the Church, but the Church would have continued to harm people.”

Like McArron, the Reverend Chester McCall felt an early calling to be involved in the Church. He has also felt rejection at times from the church that he has tried to serve. McCall is the interim associate minister at the First Unitarian Universalist Church in San Diego. Though he was also raised as a Catholic, by the time he was 12 he had announced that he was called to be a minister in a Pentecostal church in his hometown of East Palo Alto, California. Although he was prevented for a time from pursuing his ministry because his parents thought that he was too young to know what he wanted and “shouldn’t be playing with God,” he resumed his ministry at 17, becoming involved with a street ministry in his hometown, which is still in operation today.

After college, McCall ultimately argued his way into the Pacific School of Religion, convincing the administrators that they needed to accept him because it was God’s will that he attend. And in 1979, he became the first (and still only) African-American to be ordained by the Northern California Conference of the United Church of Christ.

McCall recalled that being a bisexual never made much of a difference either to his family or to his work in the ministry, at least until very recently. “It was never an issue with my family. I never had to say it; I never had to declare it. When I was a boy, my father told me that God wants everyone to find a mate and be happy, he didn’t say a man or a woman. My father chose those words carefully.”

He also recalled that later, when he was returning to his hometown, his parents told him how proud they were of the way he lived his life, and that they wanted him to continue living his life in a way that made them proud. Similarly, his sexuality has almost never been an issue in his ministry.

“Besides being a Unitarian minister, I’m also a United Church of Christ minister, and I had never really told them. Although they claim to be the first church to have ordained a gay male, that wasn’t an issue. I hadn’t put it on the record books, they were dealing with me as a single man, so they couldn’t understand some things that I did financially because they didn’t know I had a partner. But when I told them, they said ‘Yeah, we knew.’”

In fact, McCall doesn’t think his orientation really mattered to anyone very much until he went to Durham, North Carolina, to found a new UCC church, six years ago. “I had never been oppressed because of my sexual orientation until I founded a church in Durham. The black community in Durham had a problem with me because I was a gay minister. In that context, I lost community — I lost Christian community, I lost black community and I was ostracized. And, it became an issue in the church I had created, so I decided not to be the called minister of the church I had founded.”

McCall’s journey led him to become a minister with the Unitarian Universalist Association, through the invitation of a Unitarian minister he met as Director of Homeless Services in Oakland, California. In many ways, the Unitarian Church is an ideal home for McCall, because of its openness to various expressions of religious and spiritual belief. McCall describes his own theological focus, saying, “My dominant theology is pagan-Buddhist-Jewish-Christian-Universalist-humanist-experiential-liberationist-mystic.” This reflects the way in which he believes in drawing from the truth in various religions and belief systems. The Unitarian Universalists are also an ideal home because of the way they pride themselves on being totally open to GLBT persons. In fact, McCall himself sees something of a danger in the way that sexual orientation within the Unitarian Universalist Church has become so accepted. “It’s pretty much a non-issue for this church, except for the one time a year when we talk about it specifically, but that means that people can forget that it still is an issue out in the world.”

Ultimately, McCall doesn’t accept that his orientation has very much effect on his relationship with God, whom he envisions primarily as a woman. “While I’m sure that being bisexual has had some impact on my religious life it has never had any conscious impact. There’s this question I ask: ‘Are you a spiritual being having a human experience or are you a human being having a spiritual experience?’ I’m on the spiritual being side. I’m a spiritual being having a spiritual experience that just happens to be male, black, gay.”

At the same time, McCall recognizes the fact that the acceptance of more emotive and theatrical behavior from preachers and ministers might have had some impact on his coming to believe that God wanted him to be a minister. What he is certain of is that God cannot disapprove of gays, lesbians and bisexuals. “I ask myself, if being gay is so bad, then why am I so blessed? If it is really so evil and wrong then why am I having such a good life? Those two things don’t click.”

While being bisexual has made little difference in McCall’s religious life, for some religious believers, like Salman, a local Muslim, religious activity and sexual orientation don’t fit together very well. “I haven’t been able to come out to my family or to other Muslims,” he said. “I’m afraid of being ostracized. I would be cast out, be excommunicated almost, even though the mosque doesn’t officially do that.”

This is because almost all Muslims interpret the story of Lot and Sodom and Gomorrah — essentially the same story contained in Genesis — to mean that all homosexual activity is forbidden, according to Salman. “The most liberal or progressive interpretation you ever get is to hate the sin and love the sinner. The completely progressive interpretation would be to embrace the relationship, but you just don’t find that among many straight Muslims.”

Within some of the collections of Muhammad’s teachings there are condemnations of homosexual activity. However, Salman doesn’t believe that these are accurate reports of the Prophet’s words. “I deny that the Prophet of God would have condemned anyone for something they didn’t choose,” he said.

Because of predominant attitudes towards homosexuality in the Muslim world, Salman also loses out on the socialization aspect of participation in his mosque. “I go to mosque every Friday and pray, but then I leave. I don’t socialize because I don’t want to hide myself,” he explained.

At the same time that he has withdrawn from social activities at his mosque, Salman believes that coming out has brought him closer to God. “I’ve had more faith since I came out. Before I was angry because I thought that the Being who made me was condemning [me] for fulfilling my own nature.”

This attitude towards being gay and being Muslim is also shared by Afdhere Jama, editor of Huriyah, a journal of queer Muslim studies. “Islam is such a personal faith, yet Muslims are united under certain erroneous interpretations of certain things,” writes Jama. “My own personal Islam was very welcoming from the beginning. There are verses in the Koran that say, ‘God creates whatever God wills.’ Those verses were very helpful to me because it told me that even though humans might find you a mistake or something like that, God created you regardless of what they think.”

Like Salman, Jama also feels that being gay has brought him closer to God and to Islam. “Being queer has made me understand and sympathize with other people’s problems. I was able to identify with victims of abuse. I think every queer Muslim has a softer spot for people who suffered pain inflicted by society in their lives. When I was a teenager I read The Diary of Anne Frank. I remember feeling so close to that little Jewish girl. And because I was able to do this, my relationship with God and Islam, both of which are about liberating the weak and the abused, grew far richer, I think, than if I was just a heterosexual among the mainstream.”

Although Salman is not as active in his religion as he once was, he also found support in Al-Fatiha (www.al-fatiha.net), a group for gay and lesbian Muslims named for the first Sura of the Koran (“The Beginning”). The group also has a chapter in San Diego. Al-Fatiha serves as a social outlet with picnics and (alcohol-free) cocktail parties at the Abbey in Hillcrest, as well as a place for gay and lesbian Muslims to share their experiences.

Although Judaism has also traditionally been opposed to homosexuality, Rabbi Elizabeth Goldstein believes that ultimately there is nothing inconsistent between being a Jew and being lesbian or gay. Goldstein is a member of the board of J-Pride (www.jpridesandiego.org), a new group for local GLBT Jewish persons.

Goldstein, who is currently studying biblical history at UCSD, said she wanted to be a rabbi from the age of 14. “Although my parents weren’t Orthodox, I went to an Orthodox day school. My first experiences were that the men and women were separated. So, forget about being lesbian, not that I knew that then, but I couldn’t be a rabbi as a woman.”

Goldstein found the rituals and spirituality of Orthodox Judaism appealing. “I was sort of a spiritual person to begin with, so I gravitated to that school.”

Because being a woman would prevent her from becoming a rabbi, she decided instead to study to be a rabbi within the Conservative movement. “When I realized I was a lesbian, I had a problem, because Conservatives don’t ordain gays and lesbians.”

This realization led her and her partner — whom she met in rabbinical school — to Reform Judaism. It also led Goldstein to reflect on Jewish law within Jewish life, as part of what had appealed to her about Orthodoxy and Conservative Judaism was the role of Jewish law and ritual.

But, she realized, “A system of law is really great until you’re the one on the outside. I no longer saw Jewish law in the same way. I no longer thought that there needed to be a bound system of law for ritual. [However,] I still believe that the ethical laws are necessary.”

This new relationship to Jewish law is one that allows Goldstein to live her life as both a Jew and as a lesbian. The Reform movement with its openness to continued interpretation of the law is where she found her spiritual home. She believes it is important for other Jews who might be coming to terms with their sexuality to make sure they find a community which supports them in their entirety, which can help them in their own personal spiritual journey. Because she thinks community is such an important part of Judaism, Goldstein believes it’s vital that gay and lesbian Jews steer clear of congregations that interpret scripture and traditional law literally. Instead, she thinks that both scriptural and rabbinical law need to be read contextually, in a way that might recognize the tensions between being gay or lesbian and Jewish, but still allow for a resolution of those tensions.

For some gays and lesbians, tensions between their sexual orientation and their religious faith lead to a break with their faith and a movement to a different religious expression. Such was the case for Alecia Vultaggio. Vultaggio is a member of a local Kalyanamitta (Spiritual Friends) group that meets every month to study Buddhist dharma. She is also a practitioner of Vipassana (Insight) Meditation in the Theravadan Buddhist tradition.

Vultaggio grew up without any particular religion, although she read the Bible as a child. When she was 16, she converted to Christianity and remained very active in her church until she was about 21. “Then I came out and was rejected by the church and left to flounder. I had been very committed, I learned the Bible and got up every morning at 4:00 a.m. to pray.”

Left without a spiritual home, Vultaggio began to identify more with her sexual orientation. “I identified more as a lesbian. I dressed the part, I cut my hair, but I was lost spiritually.” She regained some of her spiritual footing when she went to Berkeley and began meditating, rekindling an interest she had formed in martial arts as a child. Her commitment to meditation was strengthened when she was about to leave Calcutta, but instead took a friend’s suggestion and attended a 10-day meditation. When she did return to the United States, she searched out meditation groups and has continued to meditate and more deeply explore Buddhism.

There aren’t very many other lesbians or gay men in the groups she meditates with, but that hasn’t made her sexuality an issue with them. “It’s a total non-issue. I’ve not found tensions between my meditation practice and being a lesbian.

“I’m more compassionate with myself and with others [because of meditation]”, explained Vultaggio. But in some ways, her practice, which she credits with giving her more control over her emotions and desires, can make things difficult in the GLBT community. “The gay and lesbian world is so sectioned off into different groups and interests, and I’m just not interested in that. The façade doesn’t interest me. I try to connect with the real people.” This is parallel to McCall’s identification of himself as a spiritual being who just happens to be a black, gay, man. And, according to Vultaggio, finding a real person in the GLBT community isn’t always easy, nor is it easy to find other people who really want to make spiritual connections.

However, she sees in meditation something for everyone, including those in the GLBT community. “It helps you to be happy and to work on [easing] attachment to things, thoughts and the past. That’s good for anyone,” she said. “Besides, there’s so much drama in the community and drama falls away with this kind of practice.”