The Danger of Anonymity

There’s been some discussion lately among the administrators here and other interested parties about whether this group should allow anonymous comments and participation like some other web discussion groups do. We’ve pretty much come down on the side of not allowing anonymity here. This will hopefully prevent the sort of inappropriate “flaming” that happens on some sites.

I personally have come to feel strongly that anonymity around the gay issue should be avoided, not only on the Internet, but in all the rest of our lives, especially in church.

I noted in a post a while back that, in the area of sexuality especially, the Orthodox church ends up a kind of odd, artificial environment in the midst of the “real” world we all inhabit outside the services. Gay people, who make up a small and non-growing minority in the society in general, are even scarcer in the church, as so many of us end up forced out one way or another. Thus those who remain in the church make up an unnaturally small minority compared to the world outside. And the pressure on that tiny minority makes for a great deal of conflictedness, giving those with an interest in seeing gays as objects of pity or suspicion many perfect opportunities to do so.

But that’s not a complete picture, because there’s an “elephant in the room” in this case: the gay bishops and clergy who to varying degrees lead double lives. This ranges all the way from priests in monogamous relationships with male partners who are in some way invisible, to those who lead secret lives of the kind of debauchery that would, rightly, get any of the rest of us in trouble. Some of these people even speak out publicly against homosexuality.

It’s in the face of such behavior that I feel it’s absolutely essential for gay people to be completely non-anonymous in the church now, especially those of us who have been missing from the picture: those of us who by behavior can be identified neither with the wounded and demonized nor with the duplicitous clergy.

We’re not saints, we’re not role models, we’re not particularly admirable for being “out” this way. This isn’t an expression of “gay pride.” It’s merely an open acknowledgment of the fact that we’ve seen Truth in the person of Christ and we’re working out our salvation in response to that experience. We’re falling, we’re getting back up again, just like any other Christian. But our aim is honesty, and part of that honesty is in resisting being cast as a fearful “other.” We’ve enabled that view far too long. Anonymity supports it. Let’s stop.