The very notion of Gay Spirituality caused controversy in our group and on the net. Clearly it is a rapidly developing aspect of our community as shown by the outpouring of books, meetings and groups devoted to the subject. For us, as students of Christian Science, the only question seemed to be what is its relevance to our own salvation and the salvation of the world.

One member asked whether God is aware of Gay Spirituality, and the paradoxical answer "no" and "yes" brought some clarity. Like Christ Jesus and Christian Science, it can be seen as a human means to facilitate divine understanding, or as an impartation from God to man (i.e. God being man and the universe).

There has been much suffering over the years among Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgendered ( LGBT) people in following spiritual paths: pain inflicted not only by organized religions but as well by our community which, understandably, shuns any spiritual calling as just another homophobic outrage. One of our members gave us a wonderful annotated reading from Science and Health on this painful dichotomy and we hope to post this on our site shortly.

Our community has gone far afield in its quest for spiritual enlightenment: founding caucuses such as Dignity for Catholics and Integrity for Episcopalians; wholly new churches like the Metropolitan Community Church; and investigating non-Western religions like Buddhism, Hinduism and Sufism. Some have gone deeply into mythology, depth psychology, and various 12-Step recovery programs.

The focus for the Scientist in all this might be to seek the foundational structure from which all these quests draw their strength and live out from that. What better support could we give?

Healings:

The healings this week were very much on topic. Several members of our group attended Sunday services at a local branch church which, 20 years ago, was the scene of a brutal excommunication of a member in response to his overt homosexuality. The atmosphere was very low in that church but we did liven it up. There are clearly still wounds. The scriptural readings were about Joseph and led one of us to see how all that long ago nastiness was integral in the birth of liberated Christian Science in New York City — in 1978, several of us left our NYC branches to join with others in composing a pamphlet, which was distributed at The Mother Church's Annual Meeting in 1980 — and the rest is history.

One of our members attended another branch on Wednesday where the reading were on marriage, drawing heavily from Mary Baker Eddy's chapter on the subject, in Science and Health. He gave a testimony pointing out that gay marriage was under consideration in a number of areas in the country, and needs to be evaluated in the light of Science as indicated in the readings.

One member in talking to an MD was stunned to find that many nominally straight young men are popping Viagra pills just to give the appearance of sexual interest in women. He experienced profound compassion for these dear ones, whereas before he dismissed them all as heterosexist pigs.