Dozens of gay-rights advocates, many of them Christians, gathered recently outside the headquarters of the Presbyterian Church in Taiwan in Taipei to protest the church’s decision to oppose same-sex marriage, with banners reading “Where is justice? Faith is dead” and “The church’s moral courage that lasted 150 years is gone,” to pressure the church to overturn its decision to oppose same-sex marriage.
It reminded me of a friend, a retired Methodist pastor who once worked with the Presbyterians in Taiwan in fighting for democracy in this nation and who adopted a Taiwanese boy who later came out as gay. My friend completely accepts and loves unconditionally his son, who is a grown man now and out to his family and friends.
My friend Bob and his wife, while working in Taiwan for their church for five years, adopted the boy as a baby and took “Joshua” — a pseudonym for the purposes of this article — home to Toronto with them and their biological children when they returned to Canada.
When Joshua graduated from high school, he “came out” to Bob and his wife, telling them with candor, but also with trepidation, that he was gay.
“That year my son stayed home and didn’t start college right away,” Bob told me in a recent e-mail. “I not only had him at home, but I also had a good female friend who was a medical doctor with a doctorate in religion. She took it upon herself to give me articles and books to read about homosexuality and AIDS. (I went with my son to get his first HIV test results. I am grateful that he has had one partner for over 10 years.) She gave me information about the off-the-charts suicide rate in gay adolescents. My son was no longer an adolescent, but it terrified me to think what he went through in himself when he was.”
Bob, an open-minded Christian who fondly remembers his years in Taiwan, told me more of the family history: “On the night after Joshua’s graduation from high school, he told me he finally had to admit it to himself. He cried at the shame he said he felt he was bringing on me. I didn’t know much about homosexuality at that time, I must admit. I told our son that there was no shame involved at all, and that there was much that I didn’t understand about gays, but that he was my son, I loved him, and nothing would ever change that.”
“Joshua stayed home and worked at a local job for a year before going to college,” Bob added. “It was great for me because he and I grew in knowledge and together during that year. It was the beginning of a long learning process for me. I could not be prouder of my son than I already am.”
While Bob still follows the Methodist tract called Book of Discipline and has never officiated at a same-sex marriage, he feels the pain of gay people who want to see gay marriage become the norm in Taiwan.
Bob told me he feels secure that he did the right thing by completely accepting his adopted son’s homosexuality and loving him all the more as time went on. When his son was a baby, there was no way to know during the adoption process that Joshua would come out as gay in his late teens, but he did and it is a story with a Taiwanese footnote that the public here should well consider when thinking about the issue of legalizing same-sex marriages in this country.
The recent nighttime protest rally in Taipei “was triggered by a letter issued by the church’s general assembly, which announced that the church would officially oppose same-sex marriage,” according to the Taipei Times.
The church’s clergy, the newspaper reported, have split views on the issue, with most pastors affiliated with the general assembly and churches in the north supporting same-sex marriage, while pastors in the south oppose it.
The letter came as a result of a motion made jointly by pastors representing two Presbyterian churches in Greater Kaohsiung and supported by several other churches in the south. The motion led to heated debate among church members, but was eventually adopted and confirmed by the general assembly on Tuesday.
What would Jesus do?
Dan Bloom is a freelance writer in Taiwan.
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