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This is a message I addressed to a bulletin board of homosexuals who were or had been Bahá'ís, in the context of the great polarisation that the discussion of homosexuality in a religious context tends to engender. Following the logic of reconciliation that I understand to be one of the animating principles of Bahá'í hermeneutics, and inspired by the model of 'Abdu'l-Bahá's approach and interactions with those whose views were at times directly challenging to the teachings, I offer these thoughts as a possible path toward, not removing the inevitable tensions that the position of homosexuality in the Bahá'í Faith generates, but framing their discussion in a more unifying, more potentially constructive perspective.
Dear all,
I have been moved by all your comments to participate in this heart-deep exchange. I should clarify that I am a Baha'i, and I am not gay. Many of my friends are gay, and I lived for many months in a gay household when Iwas 15. From my perspective, there is no denying that being gay in today's world may prove a painful experience (although not only painful...). There is stigma and prejudice resulting at times in violence, physical or psychological. In a Baha'i community that remains small, widely scattered and, according to its own testimony, embryonic, the challenge of relating effectively to homosexuality is even greater, both for homosexual and heterosexual Baha'is.
A number of parameters are clear. The bottom line in terms of homosexual practice and the Baha'i community, is that it is not allowed in the Baha'i Faith. As has already been said, there is no room for compromise on this principle, as it is based on the scriptures themselves and backed up by the authorised interpretations thereof. The UHJ simply does not have the powers to change such a law. This means that a Baha'i with homosexual tendencies or a homosexual identity will find reconciling their Baha'i and sexual identities an area of unavoidable tension in the Faith. I'll come back to this in a minute.
Equally crucial, is the unequivocal and primary principle of the oneness of humanity, trancending sexual, racial, religious and even moral divides. There is no exception, no leaf that does not belong to the tree of humanity. There is, it is evident from even a cursory reading of 'Abdu'l-Baha's writings, no warrant whatsoever for Baha'i attitudes toward homosexuals that involve hostility, shunning, or any form of aggression. If such attitudes are sometimes found among Baha'is, it is because this is a very young Faith, still learning to walk, and even struggling to grasp the transforming vision of Baha'u'llah. In such circumstances, we often fall back on inherited patterns of behaviour. The difference is that those patterns are not sanctioned in the writings, and that we are committed to gradually but permanently replacing them with new standards of interaction based on the oneness of humanity. Similar challenges face us as Baha'is in dealing with all the forces that currently tear humanity apart. After all, as theUniversal House of Justice states,"As you know, the Baha'is are distinguished not by their perfection or their immunity from the negative influences of the wider society in which they live, but by their acceptance of Baha'u'llah's vision and willingness to work toward it. Each of us must strike a balance between realistically facing our community's shortcomings, and focusing on Baha'u'llah's Teachings rather than our fellow believers as a standard of faith. This comment is not intended to belittle your concerns, but rather place them in perspective so that you may not become discouraged as you strive toward the ideal."
Thus I believe that as the years go by, while the tension between homosexuality and faith in the Baha'i community will not go away (only one of the many possible tensions confronting a Baha'i), the climate in which such tensions are resolved will become much more refined, more spiritually informed, less conditioned by the past, and more unifying and transformative. This does not promise a "final answer" that satisfies everyone, but a nurturing and positive process, that increasingly liberates our human potential and ability to communicate with one another above our differences and blindspots and frailties. Another dimension of this, is that gay identity itself is in flux, and embryonic too. The powerful poem in this site attests to nuances and layers of identity that are yet to fully find their voice in gay discourse. All of humanity will have much to learn, as will the Baha'is, from the spiritual insights gained by homosexuals around the world who have suffered from the venomous hostility of many in their society. And I suspect the gay world will likewise discover that there are voices within its ranks that remain silent or excluded, and which, as they are heard, will transform the meaning of homosexual identities. Again, this will not resolve the tension between Baha'i identities and gay sexuality, but it may well open new and more constructive spaces and arenas in which to address such tensions.
As to the laws of the Aqdas specifying punishments and sanctions against extramarital sexuality, it is evident that laws and society define one another. The reason why such laws are not in force anywhere in the Baha'iworld today, is, according to the Universal House of Justice, not on account of limited numbers (we have areas with entire Baha'i villages in which such laws could well be applied), but because the society does not exist yet with the refinement required to furnish an appropriate context to such laws. Ag reat deal of complementary legislation remains for the Universal House of Justice to formulate (and change later if necessary) that may qualify, clarify and even deeply challenge the common-sense meaning which we might attribute to a law which is unlikely to apply for decades or centuries tocome. So it would be misleading, both for Baha'is and others, to derive a code of behaviour from laws which, as long as society remains in its current state of development, are neither applicable, nor fully comprehensible.
Another theme discussed are administrative sanctions. These are explicitly not to be applied in relation to individual lifestyles, except when those lifestyles affect in a serious way the wider perception of the Baha'icommunity. To give you a real life example, I once visited a Baha'i community near the Gulf of Mexico. It so happened, that the most receptive population to the Baha'i message in that city was the large local gay community. The Local Spiritual Assembly which administers the faith in that city adopted a welcoming and tolerant approach, making clear the Baha'i teachings on homosexuality, but leaving individuals to work on their own relationship to the Faith in accordance with the dictates of their conscience and the passing of time. The enrolements grew among gays in the city, to the point that when I invited someone to visit the Baha'i centre, he told me that he thought that was a gay club! In this context, a local Baha'i community was placed in a dilemma, whereby the public built a picture of the Baha'i community which, rightly or wrongly, is not the community envisioned byBaha'u'llah. For the sake of honesty, both towards the public and towards itself, the Baha'i community must prevent this sort of scenario from emerging. This does not mean that a wave of administrative sanctions followed against gay Baha'is. It didn't. It is merely to point out the delicate juggling act between preserving individual rights and freedoms, and acting as custodians of the community and institutions designed explicitly by Baha'u'llah.
There are no easy answers to such dilemmas within a faith perspective. Knee-jerk responses of condemnation, of either the Baha'i community or individuals struggling to reconcile their faith and sexuality, are in myview inappropriate. Slowly, I have no doubt, we will develop processes and discourses that allow these dilemmas to be faced in a life-affirming, soul-ennobling fashion. I say slowly, because we are struggling against the inertial of millenial instincts to conflict and power struggles. I say I have no doubt about the positive outcome, because no unprejudiced observer would question the depth of Baha'i commitment to (however embryonic the understanding of) the oneness of humanity. Baha'is daily sacrifice careers and security to place themselves in situations of painful diversity, only to struggle, day in and day out, to reconcile their differences. We have been doing this for one hundred and fifty years, and we will, God willing, continue to work on this for another thousand more. Already, against all odds, a sociologist who is not a Baha'i described the Baha'i community as the single most unified, most diverse body of people in the planet. It sounds good, but it's not easy, and the heroism of the Baha'i community lies in not running away from the inevitable pain that must precede understanding. After all, it is, Baha'u'llah tells us, patience that leads from search to love; and pain that leads from love to knowledge. And so, in this early stage of dealing with the issue of homosexuality within the Baha'i community, patience is required, as is pain; but also the spirit of search and love and the thirst for knowledge. Every time we create a breakthrough of understanding, we are pioneering into a new country, in which the proscription of extramarital sex does not translate into virulent hostility and aggression, and in which the preservation of a homosexual identity does not require the vilification of a Faith community. A new country in which what matters is increasing mutual understanding, sacrificing our lives for one another, and building a peaceful and united world.
At the basis of such processes, lies the Baha'i principle of the independent investigation of truth. No one is forced to become a Baha'i. Someone who decides not to be a Baha'i is not considered damned or evil. So becoming a Baha'i is a matter of choice and recognition; a decision to embrace Baha'u'llah's authority to teach and legislate, affirming but transcending (stretching) our deep spiritual insights, based on a recognition of the spiritual integrity and beauty of His voice and of His life and of His message.
Such recognition cannot be manufactured or imposed, but if it is there, it requires that we abide by its principles. When a homosexual person finds his heart captivated by the Slayer of Lovers; when his or her soul discovers in Baha'u'llah the Ancient Beauty; and when Baha'u'llah's global vision encompasses the horizon of his or her heart, then he or she will enter a world of wonder, of struggle, of joy and disappointment; of loss and reunion; of plenitude and powerlessness. When a heterosexual responds in the same way, the very same experience will follow, nor will the trials be less, merely different. And if a homosexual finds that he is tested by attitudes within the infant Baha'i community he or she has joined; so will a heterosexual be tested, and in equal measure. If our sense of vision and rapture and recognition is greater and more compelling than the trials and sorrows that accompany all spiritual journeys, we will remain, homosexual and heterosexual alike, humble lovers of Baha'u'llah; and with infinite longing offer up our lives in the path of love. Otherwise, our search will continue along different routes, and God willing, the Baha'i Faith will prove to have been a valuable milestone in our path to God.
"For whoso maketh efforts for Us, in Our ways shall Weguide them".
With deep love and humble admiration for the honesty and yearning ardour of the voices in this space,
Your broken winged brother,
Ismael
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