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Front Page Article by Church Street Freedom Press: June 29,2006

Straight Into Gay America: Traveling on the Margins

"As a white, well-educated, male I'd never run into the brick wall of being denied something solely because I was in the wrong category. Seminary was absolutely clear on this issue to me. Get married or get out." Lars Clausen is recalling his seminary experience. The theology, he tells us, "did speak to me, especially the themes of Jesus' attention to the margins of life, and the mystery of our living, and the unpredictability of our days, and how good and evil are strangely mixed together, and how through it all, we have the invitation to live with a sense of awe and wonder. I loved that stuff."

There was a problem, however. A rather big one. "Seminary was also my introduction to LGBT discrimination. In 1989 our Lutheran church was creating 'Visions and Expectations' to formalize the exclusion of all people, unless you were either celibate or heterosexually married. (Anne) and I were already engaged to be married when the seminary kicked me out because we were living together. I got back into seminary by getting a marriage license. A number of gay or lesbian student colleagues had no options other than to leave seminary or to lie about their relationships."

Lars and Anne moved to Nome, Alaska, for his first call as a pastor, serving a congregation with Inupiat Eskimo roots. "This first call of three-and-a-half years gave me the great gift of finding myself once again at a margin of society." Then it was on to Michigan State University, where he served as a campus pastor. After listening to LGBT members of the community, Lars recalls a sermon he preached: "I shared how I didn't know if my one and three year old kids would grow up straight or gay, but that however they grew up, I wanted them to find full welcome in any church they wanted to be part of." One thing that kept him going, he says, was "the stories that LGBT people shared with me," stories which "made me want to help create safe space for people."

Margins and space are definite themes in Lar's life and theology. "In 2000 I left campus ministry and our family moved to Washington State for a year away from church, to think about our future and see what directions we wanted to pursue." What came next was perhaps unexpected, but it certainly fit into the margins theme. With Anne's agreement and support-"after a week of looking at me funny"-Lars pulled out his unicycle and for six months pedaled for 9,136 miles, in 50 states, raising funds for an Alaskan ministry. Today that endowment has grown to over $1 million. "The focus of  this ride was Native America, and I pedaled through as many Native lands as possible. Once again, I found my place at the margin of society."

"The lesson of the ride wasn't breaking records"-which he did, two Guinness World Records-"but becoming vulnerable on the road, dependent on safe drivers, available food, and even air-conditioning on the hottest days of summer.... I discovered  that being vulnerable allowed other people to approach me easily, hear my story, and share their own." He wrote his first book from this ride, One Wheel - Many Spokes: USA by Unicycle, receiving a Benjamin Franklin Finalist award for Best New Voice in non-fiction.

All of which lead him to his most recent ride, and book, Straight Into Gay America. "Physically, I knew I could do this ride. Spiritually, I knew that my place is on the margin of society, and I was looking forward to exploring the LGBT margin from the literal margin of the road. And practically, I knew that the unicycle was a great vehicle for starting conversations and I wanted to test the limits of touring by addressing one of the most polarizing questions in our country today, what do people think about LGBT rights."

After completing the 1000 mile ride, the next step was writing, which also required some limit testing. "My poet friend Jim Bodeen read my first rough draft and really challenged me to go deeply into my own experiences and my own motivations for this ride....I realized more and more strongly that Straight Into Gay America is my own coming out story, and that we all have coming out stories, whether queer-use whatever term you like, I like queer best myself. Theologically we're all queer. Straight is the theology of glory delusion all over again-or straight."

"My experiences of seminary and theology and living with other people have somehow combined to make Equal Rights a strong priority for me." He is careful to make the point that he is "not the expert. I'm always wary of over-speaking or not saying things I have no right to say. Jody's affirmation, and the affirmation of many others helps me believe I have something to offer to the equal rights journey."

The "Jody" to whom Lar's refers is PFLAG's Executive Director, Jody M. Huckaby, who wrote the introduction to Straight Into Gay America: " My hope is that this courageous book by a straight pastor will serve as a bridge across the divide between straight and gay."

When I ask Lars about the book itself, he shares this excerpt from the first chapter, describing the literal change in space, and margin, as he unicycles from Maryland into Virginia. He leaves a highway with "its grassy median and with shoulders big enough to park truck convoys....Everything changes as I cross the Potomac River to Virginia. All the four-lane traffic converges upon an old bridge with no shoulder. Compression brakes of a big-rig roar behind me, the driver jamming down to my one-wheel speed....

"Winding the first few curves into Virginia, the dozen inches of shoulder turn into four inches and then two. Every single car must consciously consent to pass me, calculate survival space before swinging around. Trucks pound their brakes and time their passes with opposing traffic. Long trailers press into me as I balance on One Wheel." It's only after this tense experience that "I begin to see connections,

to see how being gay in America is like the lack of safe space on the shoulder of this road...."

So how, I ask, does all of this fit with his understanding of the church? "Let me start by noting that there are great pastors and congregation members serving in churches all over this country and this world. I have deep respect for people who choose to stay in their churches and their denominations and work for change.

"On the other hand, the temptations to conforming to the status quo are severe for those who are inside the church. The temptations are so severe that officials regularly choose to put up with uneducated, literalistic, simplistic and naïve interpretations of Biblical prohibitions and cause untold amounts of suffering to people in the margins, in this case, specifically LGBT people and their families, friends, and loved ones.

"The Church is always tempted to care (for) the comfortable at the expense of the powerless....Churches do a lot of good things. But I think it's true...that most often Churches do the good that they are comfortable with, not the good that puts the status quo at risk."

Lar's "day job," as he calls it, is working with authors to create websites in order to get the word out about their books. "It's hard to imagine," he tells me, that he'd ever go back into pastoring. "I've thought about this in terms of stewardship, and where the best use of my time and energy is....Being outside of church makes it much easier for me to be in solidarity with the margins."

When I spoke, via e-mail, with him last Saturday, he and his family were on their way to the Seattle Pride Festival, where he would ride his trusty, and vulnerable, unicycle. When I next talked with him, on Monday of this week, he was completing a requested exclusive essay for The Advocate. "I'll see where this Straight Into Gay America journey leads me," he says. "Right now I'm working as hard as I can to get the word out about the book." In fact, he's giving it away, a page at a time, via a daily e-mail. "My goal in giving my book away is to get stories circulating in churches and in our political conversations, so that when election time comes in November there will be more people choosing equal rights and fewer people voting for LGBT exclusion." 

To learn more about margins and space and vulnerability, and to sign-up to receive A-Page-A-Day, or to order a copy of the book,  visit www.straightintogayamerica.com

REPRINTED by permission of Freedom Press: 
Joyce L. Arnold, Ph.D.
Editor, Church Street Freedom Press
www.churchstreetfreedompress.com