LANGUAGE MATTERS

or, what Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde did not say

American Progressives have a new hero, and the MAGA mob have a new hate figure: out with Kamala, in with Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde.

Bishop Budde’s gentle rebuke to Donald Trump at the end of her sermon during a prayer service in Washington’s National Cathedral on 21st January has made headline news around the world. My social media feeds are full of images and ecstatic declarations of admiration and praise for the Bishop’s courage. (I tend to hang out with those towards the liberal/progressive end of the spectrum). I too admired her courage, but I held back from joining in the jubilation. Here is what was bothering me.

Some early reports referred to the Bishop’s appeal for LGBTQ+ children. The Guardian reports it under a headline that reads, “Trump criticizes ‘nasty’ bishop who made pro-immigrant and LGBTQ+ plea”:

After a bishop at the National Cathedral prayer service for the inauguration on Tuesday implored Donald Trump to “have mercy upon” immigrants and LGBTQ+ people, many have spoken out about the remarks—including Trump himself.

NBC News reported, “Bishop at inaugural prayer service urges Trump to ‘have mercy’ on LGBTQ children, immigrants”. Sky News reported, “Bishop pleads with Trump over LGBT children”. The BBC headline read, “Bishop asks Trump to show mercy to LGBT people and migrants”. Forbes magazine published a transcript, under these words:

Right Rev. Mariann Budde, the Episcopal Bishop of Washington, urged President Donald Trump to “have mercy” on people who are “scared now” during the inaugural prayer service at Washington's National Cathedral Tuesday, including families with LGBTQ+ members and immigrants.

Anyone who has read my posts here will know of my exasperation over the empty rhetoric that takes the place of serious and informed political and ethical dialogue when people declare themselves for or against the LGBTQIA+ “community”, as if that jumble of letters means anything (and it keeps getting added to).

Pride: here comes (almost) everybody

We know what we mean when we use the words lesbian and gay. We also know what the word “trans” means, even if we are not fully signed up members of the trans activist movement. The letter “I” is being dropped, as people with differences in sexual development ask not to be labelled “intersex” and co-opted in the name of identity politics. “Queer” was a way of gay men reclaiming the language of denigration, in much the same way that Black people took that word away from the language of racist abusers and made it a mark of pride in their identities. But when queer sits alongside gay and lesbian, it becomes more difficult to say what it signifies. One young person told me that it just means people who are still searching for an identity, but surely that means we’re all queer, if we’re honest? And that “+”? What does it mean? Who does it include, and more importantly, who does it exclude? I could go on, but let me move on.

Reading the headlines, all I saw was yet another example of the culture wars in Bishop Budde’s sermon, with empty rhetoric being flung across a great divide by both sides. To talk about LGBTQ+ children is to stray into deeply problematic linguistic and ethical territory. It risks the adult sexualisation of children in an inappropriate and potentially dangerous way. What is a bisexual child? What is a queer child? All children are queer, insofar as they are wild fledglings still largely unconstrained by our adult rules, conventions and taboos, except when we impose these on them for their own good or, more often, because their lack of inhibitions makes us uncomfortable. All children are surely also “+” for the same reason. Their desires and fears are abundant, excessive, fertile, imaginative, and curious, but they have nothing to do with identity politics or sexual rights.

So reading the headlines, I was sorry that Bishop Budde had used language that is more ideological rhetoric than Christian theology. The language of LGBTQIA+ inclusivity puts any speaker firmly in the camp of progressive politics, and I regretted that she chose to focus so specifically on that controversial topic.

Then I listened to her whole sermon. Here it is:

It lasted for just under fifteen minutes. She was gentle, intelligent, and clear in her presentation. She spoke of loving our enemies, of being merciful and praying for those who persecute us. She quoted Alexandr Solzhenitsyn: “the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being.”

Her key theme was unity, which she said has at least three foundations:

• Honouring the dignity of every human being

• Honesty in both public conversations and private discourse

• Humility—because we are all fallible

It was a beautifully crafted homily, in both its theology and its delivery. I urge you to listen to it.

At 12 minutes 30 seconds in, she made “one final plea” to “Mr President”. Yes, it was a dramatic moment—perhaps the most dramatic moment of a dramatic week in American politics—but it was not the substance of her sermon. Yet searching for a transcript online, the only transcripts I could find (apart from the clunking automatic version on YouTube) were that last brief part of her sermon. Here it is from that report in Forbes magazine which I referred to above:

Let me make one final plea, Mr. President. Millions have put their trust in you and, as you told the nation yesterday, you have felt the providential hand of a loving God. In the name of our God, I ask you to have mercy upon the people in our country who are scared now. There are gay, lesbian and transgender children in Democratic, Republican, and Independent families, some who fear for their lives. The people who pick our crops and clean our office buildings; who labor in poultry farms and meat packing plants; who wash the dishes after we eat in restaurants and work the night shifts in hospitals. They…may not be citizens or have the proper documentation. But the vast majority of immigrants are not criminals. They pay taxes and are good neighbors. They are faithful members of our churches and mosques, synagogues, gurudwaras and temples. I ask you to have mercy, Mr. President, on those in our communities whose children fear that their parents will be taken away. And that you help those who are fleeing war zones and persecution in their own lands to find compassion and welcome here. Our God teaches us that we are to be merciful to the stranger, for we were all once strangers in this land. May God grant us the strength and courage to honor the dignity of every human being, to speak the truth to one another in love and walk humbly with each other and our God for the good of all people. Good of all people in this nation and the world. Amen”

The bishop chose her words carefully. She referred to “gay, lesbian and transgender children in Democratic, Republican, and Independent families, some of whom fear for their lives.” Each of these words means something. It refers to real children living in society as we speak of it today—children who will in all likelihood be bullied and punished by people incited to hatred by Trump. She did not use any version of that vacuous slogan, LGBTQ+. She included immigrants and people fleeing war zones and persecution in her appeal to “be merciful to the stranger, for we were all once strangers in this land.”

The false reporting of this sermon, the misrepresentation of her words in even the most seemingly trustworthy media outlets, the attribution to her of a term she did not use, all show how far this ideology has gone in obscuring facts and skewering truth. It may be that elsewhere the bishop would use the rhetoric of LGBTQ+, but she would have been fully aware that every word, every pause, every facial expression in that sermon would be scrutinised by the world’s media. She would have chosen her words very, very carefully, and the media has a fundamental duty to report exactly what she said—not a word more.

To speak of lesbian, gay and trans children is to speak up for identifiable groups of people who are now at risk in American society. The words have acquired social currency by having shared meanings, even if those meanings are disputed. But to speak of LGBTQ+ children is to promulgate an ideology that has little purchase on reality. It’s Humpty Dumpty talk. Where can I find a persecuted “+” child so that I can speak up for him, her, they/them, whatever? And let’s be clear, that “+” is a sexual term, whatever it means. We are not speaking about disabled children, homeless children, sick children whose parents can’t afford healthcare. We are speaking about some vaguely inclusive form of adult sexuality that is additional or surplus to all the others in that list. And Bishop Budde did not make such a fundamental ethical and theological blunder as to refer to children in those terms.

So yes, I have great admiration for her courage, integrity and honesty, as well as for her theology, which is about as mainstream Christian as it gets. I hope our beloved Pope Francis listens to her and counts the cost of excluding women from ordination. But no, she did not use any version of LGBTQIA+ rhetoric, and those who tell you she did are misrepresenting what she said. They are manipulating the truth, which is another way of saying they are lying.

We don’t always know where the truth lies, and there is a lot working against the truth now. But when we do know, when we know what is true, it’s incumbent upon us to speak the truth, even when, especially when, it costs us. (Bishop Budde)