In the last 6 days, I’ve read two blog posts which made it clear that there is still unequal footing when it comes to LGBTQ+ people and faith.
In the first, L.A. Witt explains what happened to her at the Colorado Romance Writer’s competition. (Note: She has updated the post to reflect the apology issued to her.) The short version is that her gay Christian romance was not recognized in its proper category—Inspirational Romance.
In the second, Rick R. Reed highlights the problems with calling your publishing company “clean” and then banning LGBT love stories. Clean Reads publishes stories without explicit sex, swearing, and violence. They also disallow premarital sex unless there are “consequences,” and they outright state that they do not want “homosexual characters.” (Authors who publish with them have claimed they included LGBT characters, however this publisher does not want LGBT themes; my best guess is that they do allow side characters to be LGBT but not the main pairing.)
There are some really unfortunate implications in both cases, whether intentional or not. In the first, it’s that a book cannot be spiritual or inspirational unless the characters are straight. In the second, it’s that LGBT love is “dirty” compared to “clean” straight couplehood. In both instances, the assumptions spring from at minimum a subconscious belief that LGBT people are not Christians. (“Inspirational” is usually code for Christian faith; Christians are presumed to be people who want to keep their reading material “clean” or “pure.”)
While most of the comments on both blog posts have generally been in support of the authors’ perspectives, there are a fair number of people suggesting that this is not some kind of slight against the LGBT community but merely a preference. After all, aren’t there publishers who only put out LGBT content? Why not have a publisher who doesn’t? And since some LGBT reviewers and publishers don’t want religious content, why can’t it go both ways?
The right to publish whatever one wants is not the issue in question, and I think most of the freedom-to-choose folks are missing the point, intentionally or not. This isn’t about what someone prefers to put out, content-wise, or what is or isn’t allowed in a given category. It’s about what the specific phrasing means for LGBTQ+ people.
I have absolutely no need to publish with Clean Reads, nor do I wish to. I’m fortunate enough to have a publisher who accepts religious/spiritual content and who, if I decided tomorrow to stop writing sex into any story, would likely still publish my work. I haven’t entered anything into any kind of competition, and I have no desire to do so any time in the near future. So just to clear things up, I’m not some bitter person who got rejected or lost an award to a better writer.
No, what concerns me more here is the false split between what’s “clean” and “inspirational” and work by and about LGBTQ+ people. When I began writing seriously, I included swearing and sex in part as a defiance against a church tradition which lifted premarital sex, homosexuality, and swearing to the top of the no-no list. These are the hills they wish to die on, clinging to the idea that being “dirty” involves one or more of those actions. I was highly motivated to stand my ground and prove these are not the things which diminish my faith, that I could still call myself a Christian.
I don’t feel excluded by these people. I’m not even sure I feel angry with them. It’s more a deep sadness at the evidence we still have not developed healthy priorities. We’re still hung up on the uncleanness of matters related to sex and sexuality, keeping those at the top of the list. Yet there’s hardly a mention of the things Jesus himself said were important, chiefly how we use our resources and our treatment of marginalized people.
Is it any wonder many LGBTQ+ folks walk away from their faith and never look back? When who we are, our humanity, is stripped away so the Purity Hall Monitors can see us as walking sex organs, it makes it difficult to want to be part of the church. Publishers like Clean Reads are not selling this idea—they are making money off a belief their readership already holds.
As long as there are people who buy into the split between “clean” and LGBTQ+, there will be a market for a publisher like Clean Reads. There will be committees excluding gay stories as inspirational. There will be businesses turning away LGBTQ+ folks. The solution doesn’t rely on arguing with the companies. The answer lies with us, with creating safe space and being welcoming and inclusive until those companies become obsolete.
Great summary. 🙂
“As long as there are people who buy into the split between “clean” and LGBTQ+, there will be a market for a publisher like Clean Reads. There will be committees excluding gay stories as inspirational. There will be businesses turning away LGBTQ+ folks. The solution doesn’t rely on arguing with the companies. The answer lies with us, with creating safe space and being welcoming and inclusive until those companies become obsolete.”
— But won’t arguing with the companies help expose their discriminatory practices and help to make those practices obsolete, and help others who might not have picked up on the discrimination think more about how those practices affect others?
Oh, I only meant things like calling or emailing those companies to ask them to change their policies. I fully support actions like writing about it, telling others, making it a talking point. I think the business owners and other people who discriminate know exactly what they are doing. They may not believe they are being bigoted, but they surely know that they are excluding people they don’t wish to do business with. So telling them their policy stinks won’t get too far; they’re likely to disagree. Telling everyone else, though, is fair game.
I don’t have a faith but I’m interested in religious history and belief. I’ve just written a story in which one of the MCs is a Church of Scotland minister, a church that allows gay ministers and has recently voted to allow ministers who are in same sex relationships within certain conditions to do with the attitude of the congregation. The use of the word Clean appalls me as does the removal of the book from the inspirational category. I wanted to write a positive story and I hope I have.
I always joke that I’m “agnostichristian” because I’m not a person of deep faith. I generally use my religious practices to so social justice work. But my spouse is pretty religious (not in a weird way, LOL).
Yeah, “clean” really bothers me. It’s definitely what I call “Christianese,” and it’s code. What’s bizarre to me about both that use of “clean” and the removal of the book from Inspirational go against my experience of LGBT fiction. Nealy every single story with a character of faith that I’ve read has been very positive and full of hope, and they tend to be a lot more “real” than so much of what’s available in mainstream Christian fiction. Books that limit their content to such an extreme tend to be really shallow writing.