Is 75 Old? Some days I feel 45. Other days, , I’m prepared to admit 75 has its moments. I wish you’d all been at my recent Three Quarters of a Century Birthday Bash. Honestly, it was the best birthday party I’ve ever had.

One privilege of getting older, though, is perspective.

I’ve spent most of my years living at the intersection of faith and homosexuality. During that time the language has changed, society has changed, our community has changed and, so have I. That’s what happens when you’ve accumulated a lifetime of experiences. You don’t just remember the events. You know exactly why things changed.

Matthew Vines’ recent opinion piece in The New York Times, I’m Gay, Not Queer. It Matters has stirred up a hornet’s nest. Within days articles abounded, some for, some against. What was more disturbing were the comments these articles produced. It was obvious where the triggering was coming from and that many had never actually read the article. I did, as well as several response articles.

Who is Matthew Vines anyway?

If you are from a faith background, LGBTQ, and American, you’d know for sure. He’s also well known in similar circles in other countries like Australia.

Matthew came to fame in 2012 when, as a 21-year-old Harvard student, he posted an hour-long presentation, “The Gay Debate: The Bible and Homosexuality, “ he’d given in a church in Wichita, Kansas on YouTube. The presentation was on what had become known as the “Clobber Passages”; the six Bible passages conservative Christians used to condemn homosexuality and same-sex relationships. Essentially Matthew was saying, “the Bible never directly addresses, and certainly does not condemn, loving, committed same-sex relationships”. The presentation quickly went viral. Within six months, it had attracted nearly 500,000 views.

For many of us, Matthew’s teaching wasn’t as revolutionary as many assumed. We’d been reading about the new interpretations and teaching them for ages.

In 1955, Anglican theologian Derrick Sherwin Bailey published Homosexuality and the Western Christian Tradition. His ground-breaking work challenged long-held assumptions about the biblical texts. He contributed influentially to the UK’s Wolfenden Committee, which recommended the decriminalization of homosexuality. In 1972, evangelical psychotherapist Ralph Blair published An Evangelical Look at Homosexuality. Through his books, conferences, and teaching, Blair brought affirming biblical scholarship into evangelical circles long before the internet made these ideas widely accessible.

There were other key influencers of their time. During the 1970s, Dr Joseph Adam Pearson was lecturing and teaching on these biblical passages. Former Southern Baptist minister Rembert Truluck began teaching affirming interpretations that he would eventually publish in Invitation to Freedom (1993) and Steps to Recovery from Bible Abuse (2000). The scholarship continued to grow with influential works such as Daniel Helminiak’s What the Bible Really Says About Homosexuality (1994).

Essentially, these contributions took a scholarly look at the passages through the historical and cultural contexts of the time, as well as delving into the original languages. Their conclusions: the Bible never condemns same-sex orientation as we know it now, but were referring to same-sex activity such as rape, idolatrous/heathen practices, and prostitution.

In 2000, the above authors gave me the information I needed to resolve “traditional” Christian teaching with my homosexuality. I’m sure many reading this never knew of these authors or their work. Also, at the same time,  much of this information was becoming freely available in less academic terms through personal websites, blogs, and discussion forums, which had become popular.

Why did Matthew’s 2012 presentation have such an impact?

Several factors came together at just the right moment.

  1. YouTube had become mainstream, making his presentation instantly accessible and easy to share around the world.
  2. At just over an hour long, people didn’t have to work their way through dense, heavily referenced academic books, as many of us had done.
  3. Matthew was an evangelical. He believed the Bible was the inspired Word of God, remained deeply committed to his evangelical faith, and approached Scripture with seriousness and intellectual rigour. As he saw it, the problem was not the Bible itself, but the way it had been interpreted.
  4. As a thoughtful, articulate, non-confrontational 21-year-old gay man, Matthew was immediately recognisable to an evangelical audience. He could have been the young man in the youth group, the boy next door, the much-loved nephew or grandson.
  5. Social media was also exploding in popularity, multiplying the reach of his message far beyond what earlier generations of affirming scholars could ever have imagined.

Looking back, it was a classic case of the right person at the right time.

On a personal note, Matthew and I became friends on Facebook soon after his presentation went viral. The following year, we met for the first time at an invitation-only summit of a dozen LGBTQ Christian leaders in New York, hosted by the Arcus Foundation. I had already launched Ambassadors & Bridge Builders International (ABBI) and Matthew had launched his organisation, The Reformation Project. Matthew sat opposite me at the table. We were meeting to discuss strategies to counteract the growing anti-gay rhetoric in Christian circles. Also present were Justin Lee, the founder of the Gay Christian Network, the famous Pentecostal preacher Carlton Pearson, and others who had each played significant roles in changing the conversation around faith and sexuality. It was a great honour to join this group of LGBTQ faith leaders, and a day I will never forget.

What’s in a name?

Matthew’s beef is with the label “queer”. He rejects it entirely, as per the article title. He’s not the only one, but the reason Matthew rejects queer is different to why others are so vehemently against it.

When I was growing up, “queer” wasn’t a badge of honour or a broad description of our community. It was shouted across school playgrounds, muttered as you walked down the street. It was a word designed to make people like us feel ashamed of who we were and humiliated. More importantly, for many, it is associated with fear and violence. It was the word you heard before you got punched in the back or face, or even worse, thrown off a cliff. For me, the gang yelled “fucking queer” as they bashed me and left me cradling my broken ribs.

That’s why I’ve never been surprised that many older gay men and lesbians don’t feel comfortable using “queer” today. Decades later, it is still associated with trauma, fear, and violence. Initially, I didn’t like its easy adoption by younger members of our community. The “get over it” suggestion was not helpful.

One thing I’ve learned over the years is that the language used to describe LGBTQ people has never remained still. Other people labelled us Sodomites, inverts, members of the Third Sex, homosexuals, perverts, sexual psychopaths, deviates, poofters and faggots. On the other hand, we have continually searched for language that better describes who we are. We identified as homophiles, many Australians called themselves camp, then came gay, gay and lesbian, GLB, LGBT, LGBTQ and, more recently, queer for many people. Language evolves because people evolve. Every generation chooses new words that better reflect its own understanding and experience.

Even the word “gay” has had its issues.

When I came out the first time, in 1972, I can’t recall ever using the word “gay”; we were “camp”. Gay meant you were happy, light-hearted; if something was gay, it was bright or colourful.

In his 1975 disgusting, much-distributed and quoted by people like Anita Bryant, anti-gay article, There’s Nothing Gay About Homosexuality. Murray Norris said. “Whoever decided to call homosexuals ‘gay,’ must have had a terrible sense of humor” and “You may call yourselves ‘gay,’ but homosexuality is really lonely, diseased, sinful and miserable.” 

First, we were the gay community. Then we became the gay and lesbian community, followed by the gay, lesbian, and bisexual community. Each change reflected the recognition of a group that had previously been largely invisible.

Even the acronym evolved. When I came out in the early 1990s, it was usually GLB. Before long, it became LGB, and then the “T” was added as transgender people gained greater visibility and recognition within the community.

If you go back and read our literature from the 1960s and 1970s, you won’t find the word transgender. The term in common use was transsexual. Gender non-conforming Candy Darling, one of Andy Warhol’s most celebrated muses and an icon of New York’s underground art scene, was widely described as a transsexual, as were many others of her generation. Today, transsexual has largely fallen out of use, replaced by transgender.

For many of us, things became more complicated as the acronym continued to grow—LGBT, then LGBTQ, and eventually LGBTQIA+. Some people, often dismissively, referred to it as “alphabet soup.” It can certainly feel cumbersome, and it takes a bit of practice before it rolls off the tongue with ease.

Another interesting historical footnote is the letter “Q”. Many people today assume it has always stood for queer, but for many years it was widely understood to mean questioning for people who were still coming to terms with their identity. Over time, queer became the more common interpretation, reflecting yet another example of how our language continues to evolve.

I’ve really laboured the point here, but if you have a historical perspective, you understand that not only do words change, they also change meaning.

How did we end up queer?

The use of queer has grown significantly over the past three decades. While it first gained prominence in activist and academic circles during the 1990s, it became far more widely adopted by Millennials and especially Generation Z. Today, many younger LGBTQ people use queer as an umbrella term for the community, as a personal identity, or to express a more fluid understanding of sexuality and gender. For many, it is inclusive, flexible, and avoids the need to define themselves by more specific labels such as gay, lesbian, or bisexual. And they don’t seem to have known the fear and violence attached to the word queer as many of us older generation have.

As I mentioned, LGBTIQA+ is cumbersome, but it was important for those who were transgender, intersex, or asexual to be acknowledged for their identity. If you know any intersex, transgender, non-binary, or asexual people, you’ll know that their struggle has also been with society’s prejudice, discrimination, people’s ignorance and even violence and hatred: the same as any gay or lesbian individuals has. Not because of anything they’ve done, but for who they are.

The reclamation of queer isn’t unique. Many lesbians have reclaimed the word dyke and wear it with pride. The Dykes on Bikes have led our Mardi Gras parade for years now. Not every lesbian embraces the term, and few would insist that all lesbians should identify as dykes. The same principle applies to queer. Some people have reclaimed it and love it. Others haven’t. I have lesbian friends who identify as gay women. People’s preferences deserve respect.

I’ve seen plenty of disagreements within the LGBTQ community over the decades. Gay men and lesbians haven’t always seen eye to eye. There have been debates over politics, strategy, religion and language. None of that is new. What mattered was recognising that our futures were intertwined. Communities aren’t built on uniformity. They’re built on respect and common goals like equality. Respect for different experiences and different generations. Respect for the fact that one word can carry entirely different memories depending on when you were born and the life you’ve lived.

My problem with Matthew Vines’ article

I appreciate the contribution Matthew has made over the years to individuals, churches, and the debate, but I disagree with the premise of his New York Times opinion piece.

Matthew argues that the growing use of the word queer is undermining the public understanding that being gay is an innate sexual orientation and, in doing so, is weakening support for marriage equality. That’s a serious claim. Yet he offers little evidence that the increased use of one word has contributed in any meaningful way to the political backlash we’re now seeing.

The erosion of support for LGBTQ rights is far more complex than that. Political polarisation, culture wars, social media, religious nationalism, and the increasing focus on transgender issues have all reshaped the public debate. To suggest that the word queer is a significant factor asks more of the evidence than it can bear.

Matthew also spends considerable time tracing the modern use of queer through Queer Nation and queer theory and previously Queer Theology, arguing that the word “queer” carries an inherently anti-normative or adversarial meaning. While that’s an interesting intellectual history, I question how relevant it is to many LGBTQ people today. Most people who identify as queer have never read queer theory. They aren’t embracing an academic philosophy; they’re simply using the language of their generation.

When I came out in 1991, I wasn’t proud to call myself gay. Years of religious teaching had convinced me it was something to be ashamed of. Learning to accept that I was gay and eventually to embrace it was a long journey. That one word became part of my healing. It’s the word under which I rebuilt my life, found my community, wrote my books, and spent more than three decades advocating for LGBTQ people. That’s why it still matters to me today.

I often get to speak to intergenerational audiences, so use different terms to be relevant and non-repetitive. The LGBTQ community is used, mostly. I also refer to the gay community (inclusive), the rainbow community, the tribe, and, at times, even the queer community.

My greatest concern, however, isn’t Matthew’s analysis. It’s his decision to publish this argument in The New York Times at this particular moment in history.

Our community is under sustained attack. Marriage equality is again being questioned. Anti-LGBTQ rhetoric is increasing. Hard-won rights that many of us assumed were settled are no longer guaranteed. At a time like this, I found myself asking a simple question: Who does this article help?

There is one point, however, that I believe should unite all of us, regardless of where we stand in this debate. The LGBTQ movement has long argued that people have the right to define themselves rather than have others define them.

If someone tells me they are queer, I will respect that without hesitation. If someone identifies as gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, non-binary, or any other identity, I will respect that too. Identity is personal, and each of us has the right to describe ourselves in the language that best reflects who we are.

If ever there was a time when we needed to stand together with kindness, compassion, support, and empathy, it is now.

Let’s face it. We might not agree on every issue. We might not even like each other sometimes. But we’ll always be family.