Letter to a Christianist Notion
Under the comments section in my post Queens and Kings, I got one tonight from someone defending the young woman and the note she gave me in Memphis that I wrote about in that post. As you all know, I have always written back to you privately to your email addresses when you’ve been so kind to send along your comments to me. I think that is the proper way to respond to you. In this case, however, I’m going to post my private email letter back to this woman. Perhaps I was a little strong in the “blood on your hands” remark. If so, I apologize to her and any one who is offended by that remark. Perhaps my whole email is an overreaction - to her, but not to the scores upon scores upon scores of people who think like her and say much meaner things in much meaner ways. But I wrote it to her in the white heat of my anger and exhaustion tonight. Sometimes YOU’VE JUST HAD ENOUGH. Why must it always be the ones who are insulted who have to “rise above it,” as my beloved grandmother used to advise me to do. So I’ll own that remark and not edit it out. I’ll own the whole email. I think we’ve all developed a brutally honest cyber relationship here on this blog - even between my detractors and me now, I guess. Anyway, her comment is under the name Marjorie Williams under Queens and Kings. This is my reply to her:
I’ll pray for your judgemental soul also. As Matty May says in the book when she hears me use the n-word in her presence. “God made me in His image, so if I’m a n—–, than God’s a n—– too. You think about that.” God made me in His image as well - YOU THINK ABOUT THAT - whoever you are. There is a part of God that is as gay as my sister and I are . My sister Karole is a proud lesbian CHRISTIAN and I’d stack her goodness and her redemptive grace against the judgemental likes of you any day. It really does become more and more difficult to put up with the self-righteousness of the rightwing Christianists like you who only focus on the sexuality of people, a sexuality that is as much a gift from God as yours is. Quote me a passage from the Bible in which Jesus mentions homosexuals. His presence on this earth was about reaching out to those who others, like you, scorned and spurned, to the poor, the marginalized.
People like you have blood on your hands each and every time a gay or lesbian teenager kills him or herself. We’ll all have a lot to answer for someday - but folks like you especially will.
And how DARE you invoke my parents and grandparents names when condemning me. I loved them with all my heart and they loved me. Whoever you are, you really stooped low.
But I’ll make a deal - you continue to pray for me and I’ll take a breath, I’ll calm down - and I’ll pray for you. Let’s pray for each other. I trust God to hear both our prayers. Let’s let Him decide whose sin is greater. That decision - no matter how self-centered you obviously are in your religiosity - is not yours.
Kevin
March 25th, 2007 at 2:08 am
Hey, K —
You wrote in your latest post (”Letter to a Christianist Notion”) that “[a]s you all know, I have always written back to you privately to your email addresses when you’ve been so kind to send along your comments to me. I think that is the proper way to respond to you,” but I never got word from you about my comment following your post “My Own Li’l Hel(l)enic Column” — so how personally should I take it?
With thanks from another writer who takes everything (too much?) to heart,
R
March 25th, 2007 at 8:03 am
Mr. Sessums,
I don’t know if you will remember me, I was at the signing in Memphis with a friend of mine…the “your brother gave my mother her hysterectomy” guy. Anyway, my friends and I were at the park having a picnic and we were discussing your book. James mentioned your blog and the comment that you received. I read it this morning and this post with your reply. I want to apologize for her comment and behavior, Memphis is a friendly place with friendly people. It is a SHAME. I just read what you mentioned about your sister…yes, she is a gem. My family had the pleasure of her company years ago at the Hearts against AIDS benefit in Jackson. What a lovely lady! Anyway, we thoroughly enjoyed our “Sessums reading”…and we’re loving the book. May you be blessed in all that you do.
Sincerely,
A.J. Northrop
March 25th, 2007 at 9:25 am
in my green satin feeling pajamas and my longish matted hair I stand from my old computer seat before breakfast and applaud you. It’s Sunday. If there were an honest religion I could respond to it. I have begun to tune in to these blog things like I would a devotional.
March 25th, 2007 at 9:32 am
oh, Mr. Sessums. You have no idea your influence, no idea. Not only would your deceased family be proud… it is almost a place that even some other good-writers might look around for a word for. I’m stumbling but that’s ok. I was so delighted in the past to scrimp around for, collect & save your Vanity Fair covers and whatever since. But honey, you’re comin’ into some kind of… awakening ? which countless persons have been needin’. preach on. we’ve been needin’ you
March 25th, 2007 at 10:04 am
Kevin, just last week my mother sent me a clipping from the McComb Enterprise Journal editorial which discussed the recent controversial stance on homosexuality taken by Rev. Albert Mohler. The EJ’s comment was that
“Homosexuality probably will be the civil rights battle of the 21st century.”
So remember, honey, you are far from a sissy, but a HERO, and many of us stand beside you in this battle.
Love, Diane
March 25th, 2007 at 11:15 am
Dear Kevin:
As a 48 year old gay native Arkansan now living in New York City, your book was deeply meaningful to me on so many levels. I just finished reading it and enjoyed it immensely. Thank you for having the courage to put it all out there. Will you be doing a book signing here in the city?
I grew up in West Memphis, Arkansas in a culture very similar to the one you describe in your book. It was an environment where racism, homophobia, alcoholism and abuse prevailed. I succumbed to alcoholism and drug addiction at a very early age and much of it was fueled by trying to medicate the internal conflict created by being an “Arkansas sissy,” as it were. I’ve been in recovery for several years now and work here in NYC for Housing Works. We’re the city’s largest provider of housing and supportive services for homeless people living with HIV/AIDS. I’m a survivor and one of the things that keeps me going is people like you, people who are willing to share similar stories. Thank you for that.
Sincerely,
Ken Robinson
Astoria, New York
March 25th, 2007 at 11:41 am
Christianists like this Marjorie idiot would have been on Dr. Gallman’s team.
March 25th, 2007 at 2:20 pm
Howdy Kevin, I just read with great interest about your new book and read an interview with you in our paper here on The Coast. Years ago Vanity Fair ran an expose of the sexual abuse in the Catholic Church and how the D.A. in New Orleans was refusing to prosecute these Priests. I wrote a letter and was thrilled when I received a call from VR rep. saying ,”The editor loved your letter”. I thought this morning that this may have been you, I don’t know. But your comments about your own molestation hit me like a blow. I think I know why you said “Sure” to seeing this bastard again. For the same reason victims will say anything to appease their attackers when they are in a state of extreme duress (frequently experineced as numbing emotionally) and confusion. I equate it with research I have read on female rape victims. I read of sexually experienced women who are raped and experience climax. They are deeply ashamed and confused by this-but the body is conditioned to respond and sometimes in ways we would never predict. Often victims of molestation have been ‘courted’ by these predators and made to feel loved before anything sexual is attempted. They too have reported sexual excitement but this is just a physiological response-the psychological ones are far more complex. I hope this will help you to put your response in a context and banish any distress or guilt you continue to experience because of this memory. Can’t get over toFairhope today but best wishes with the book-I am looking forward to reading it. Pax Tecum, Mississippi Gal
March 25th, 2007 at 6:22 pm
I just finished your book and am in awe. I am a student at Mississippi College and picked up the book at your reading on Thursday. It was an incredible day, between Soulforce’s courageous (and long-overdue) presence on campus and beginning to read your book. I think my roommate may be questioning my sanity as I would quickly switch between laughing out loud and crying while reading. Thank you for writing with such painful honesty. As a very liberal Catholic from a staunchly conservative, Baptist family, I felt a kinship with your feelings of otherness. Mississippi needs more voices like yours. Thank you.
March 25th, 2007 at 7:49 pm
Thanks, Kevin, for your kindness to the “christianists”, good term, btw, and for keeping your balance. I am afraid this shallow do-goodism will continue. I have faced it, abhored it, and learned how ridiculous it is. Also how damning, for them and for all civilization.
I was so pleased to find the then and now pics of you and your siblings in the Vicksburg Post. Remarkable how little your appearances have changed. And, yes, Rudy was apparent in you…no longer the young Rudy, though! Your parents must have been fine looking folks. Good genes, indeed. And, yes, there you were at #34 on NTY.com today, March 25. Going up? Yes, I think so.
March 25th, 2007 at 8:17 pm
sarah, thank you! There is hope.
March 25th, 2007 at 11:03 pm
I heard you are to be in New Orleans this week for a signing. When is it and where.
S. M. Hunter
March 25th, 2007 at 11:04 pm
“There is hope.”
At MC, there finally is. I’ve seen more progress in the last two months than the last three years I’ve been here combined. Things are changing here, some of those changes even sanctioned by the administration, believe it or not.
On a side note, I’m assuming that you are Wyatt Waters’ wife. If I’m assuming correctly, I just wanted to say that I’m a big fan of your husband’s work. He came to Booneville a few years ago and did a wonderful painting of the alley behind my dad’s store. I’ve been a fan ever since.
March 25th, 2007 at 11:11 pm
finished the book today. Loved it. Cried, even. I grew up in West Tennessee as a “Tennessee Sissy” (almost as alliterative) in the same decade as you. I had a Matty May. Her name was Lizzy. We had the same discussion about the N word. Only in my case, it was “Negro”. She didn’t like it, so I never used it. Fortunately my family never used the other N word.
I am a Christian - I am a church musician (big suprise) - and nothing makes me madder than people like the “Christianist” who love to judge. I love your response. I’ll have to use it.
AND I REMEMBER THOSE BLINDFOLDS ARLENE FRANCIS WORE! But interestingly enough, i remember the tuxes that the guys wore more. I thought they looked so smart!
March 25th, 2007 at 11:59 pm
Hi Vicki,
Thank you for the kind hello on the San Francisco thread. I hope you are well. Yes, I have been reminiscing my old Mississippi life through this blog and the challege it presents.
A few years ago I took a similiar journey on racial reconciliation with Spencer Perkins after the publication of his book; More Than Equals: Racial Healing for the Sake of the Gospel. Spencer’s parallel account of life in Mississippi during the 60s and 70s was a painful dose of reality. I wept many tears over a life I barely knew existed even though it was right in front of me. His untimely death in 1998 was heartbreaking.
Now Kevin has done it again. Nothing prepares the heart for change quite as fully as human testimony. Hypothetical debates never quite transport us into the marrow of a matter. God help us to at least talk to one another with civility and receive one another with kindness as we hear this story.
Kevin has written a compelling if sometimes uncomfortable account. I have been praying that his journey through my home soil would go well.
Vicki greet my old friends and tell them that Mississippi is never far from my thoughts. Bless you.
March 26th, 2007 at 12:25 am
Vicki,
Looking back through the threads I am embarrassed that I did not see you before now.
Too many subtle name changes… They make me smile. Having been away so long kind of freezes people in your mind. You will always be 21 in my eyes.
I found your web site…more fun. You ARE the contrarian soul… and still as beautiful as ever. If I ever get home I will walk that block or two with you…I need it worse.
March 26th, 2007 at 10:17 am
A very nicely balanced response. I’m gonna have to remember that one next time I go into a rage. Looking forward to seeing you in Miami Beach next week.
March 26th, 2007 at 3:58 pm
Kevin,
My grandfather was a leader of the Southern Baptist Convention, my family is extremely conservative and I was “groomed” if you will to follow in my grandfather’s footsteps. Anyway, came out when I was 20 in a very public way and became persona non grata with most of my family.
I read your book and identified with much of what you wrote. You put into words what so many of us have felt and thought but have been unable to express.
I wish I knew of your reading and signing in NYC but I learned of it too late. Hopefully you will have another in the future!
Jon-Marc
March 26th, 2007 at 4:19 pm
Fourteen sign carrying protesters are stationed outside the doors of the health care facility where I work. As I entered the building, one yelled, “God hates you for what you do” and another, “You’re going straight to hell.” This happens at least once a week. If I for one moment thought these hateful people controlled my eternal life, I would quake in my boots. But they do not anymore than the woman who wrote to you controls yours. Having grown up a Catholic and becoming a Baptist later (I must have been dropped on my head as an infant), I have never once felt outside the grace of God, nor estranged from the Church, even though I have been victimized by organized congregations who physically removed me for having “come out.” I’m 61, and you will find my butt occupying a pew every Sunday (except, of course, when I ask God to make a house call). I’m there because I honestly believe that treasured verse in Romans 8:1 which promises, “There is therefore no condmenation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” Imagine that! But even better than that verse is one I found in the Phillips New Testament. I never cease to smile when I read it — “The whole world stand on tiptoe waiting for the sons and daughters of God to come into their own.” So what if the hate-filled woman is right and I am going to hell. Imagine what a glorious group of folk will be there with me! We’ll have a ball.
March 26th, 2007 at 9:31 pm
oh my God; kevin connects us all. Thank you
March 28th, 2007 at 10:59 pm
Hey Kevin, I really enjoyed the book signing in Vicksburg Friday night. I just read your “Letter to a Christianist Notion” and WOW! Thats really the first word that comes to mind! When I read the part that you said “God made me in His image, so if I’m a n—–, than God’s a n—– too. You think about that.” it really makes me think! As I read it, I think about how you spoke those words Friday night in the loft of Karole and Chris’s, it really touches me! you are an incredible writer by the way you use your words! I feel very honored to have met you! I look forward to hearing about your journey-God Bless
Bobi Foster