Now kid, I know I haven't been a perfect man,
and I've avoided doing things I know I can,
but if I've learned one thing to tattoo on my arm
or burn into my thumb it would be that…
I am not sure how I came across the song “Ambling Alp” from Yeasayer’s 2010 album Odd Blood years ago, but I do know I took an immediate liking to it. It had two of the most important factors for me in any song: I enjoyed singing it, and it had a pleasing structure (each of the verses are basically modified limericks). But some of the lyrics were a bit of a mystery, and I did not bother to research the details that appear in the second verse:
Oh, Max Schmeling was a formidable foe.
The Ambling Alp was too, at least that's what I'm told.
But if you learn one thing, you've learned it well,
in June you must give fascists hell,
they'll run but they can't hide.
Recently the song came to mind again, and I took it upon myself to research the historical events alluded to in these details (this article by June Coyne at The Lakefront Historian was especially helpful). In short: “Ambling Alp” was the nickname of the Italian boxer Primo Carnera, who in 1935 lost a match to the American boxer Joe Louis, providing a jump start to Louis’ career (“The Ambling Alp was too, at least that’s what I’m told”). The following year, Louis (a Black American) unexpectedly lost to the German boxer Max Schmeling, who had become useful to the Nazi regime as a symbol of Aryan racial supremacy (“Max Schmeling was a formidable foe”). While Louis went on to secure the heavyweight title in 1937, the match between Louis and Schmeling remained an unresolved tension freighted with meaning.
A rematch was scheduled for June 22, 1938, and this time, Louis absolutely decimated Schmeling. From Coyne at The Lakeview Historian:
Two minutes and four seconds into the first round, after a comprehensively dominating performance and three knockdowns, the referee called victory for Louis. Schmeling spent the next three weeks in the hospital with fractured vertebrae in his back. In the entirety of the fight, he had managed to throw a grand total of two punches, in comparison to Louis’s forty-one. This wasn’t a simple victory—it was annihilation, a metaphorical uppercut right on the chin of Nazi supremacist rhetoric. Joe Louis was a hero to Americans of all races and classes, one of the first African-American athletes to be accepted by the country as a whole.
The match was later seen as an anticipation of the victory of Allied powers over Axis powers in Word War II (“in June you must give fascists hell”). This second verse alludes to the career of Joe Louis in the pre-World War II years—and its symbolic connection to the defeat of Nazi fascism—to provide support to a piece of advice that forms the simple two-line chorus: “Stick up for yourself, son! / Nevermind what anybody else done.”
…
Partly due to the general theme of of sticking up for oneself against powerful opposition, and partly because of some coincidental details (in particular, “June,” uh, “fascists,” and later on in the third verse, “pride”), Yeasayer’s “Ambling Alp” has become one of my Pride anthems this year.
This post comes midway through Pride Month, and so for the next couple weeks, there will be a constant, churning online discourse. There are definitely ways that certain celebrations of Pride can be unhealthy or morally wrong, but I still find myself a defender of the concept. As a contribution to this discourse (which I hope will be clarifying and edifying), and along with the theme of “stick up for yourself, son,” I offer here a few scattered thoughts in response to three of the more common Christian objections to Pride: 1) “Pride is a deadly sin,” 2) “you must choose between Pride and the Sacred Heart of Jesus,” and 3) “stop identifying with your sin.”
“Pride is a deadly sin!”
The word “pride” has a wide semantic range, wide enough to include both 1) an exaggerated sense of self-importance bordering on self-worship (which is the deadly sin) and 2) a sense of one’s own dignity and special fondness for a particular aspect of one’s identity (which is not a deadly sin). Those who sing that they are proud to be an American, or who say that they are proud of loved ones, or even those who—after overcoming a significant struggle or challenge—say they are proud of themselves, are not sinning by doing so.
One can certainly make the case that plenty of LGBTQ+ people1 have an exaggerated sense of self-importance (this is, after all, an extremely common human affliction), but it is not quite right to say that LGBTQ+ people celebrate the deadly sin of pride during the month of June.
Pride began as a commemoration of the Stonewall Uprising in Greenwich Village in New York City on June 28th, 1969, during which LGBTQ+ patrons of the Mafia-owned Stonewall Inn stood up to the harassment of a corrupt police establishment which had just raided the bar (this is why Pride parades are traditionally held in June, and why the month became “Pride Month”). It is a complicated story, and I do not want to view it through rose-colored glasses, but it is not exactly a story of exaggerated self-importance. Rather, it is a story of asserting dignity in the face of shame and secrecy. I hope we would all agree there are many reasons today that LGBTQ+ people might feel the need to assert our dignity and fondness for our own lives!
A good friend has written an excellent article on pride and the theology of St. Thomas Aquinas, which is especially illuminating. Tolle lege!
“You must choose between Pride and the Sacred Heart of Jesus.”
Okay, I understand this one is not broadly Christian, but ever since I became Catholic a few years ago, this has been one of the objections I have seen most during Pride month (for my non-Catholic readers: the Solemnity of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus occurs in June, and many Catholics have responded to Pride by claiming the entire month for the Sacred Heart).
My initial response to this objection is always something like: but, like, why? Once we recognize the common equivocation with the word “pride,” this objection fades away. Pride in that second sense mentioned above—a sense of one’s own dignity and special fondness for a particular aspect of one’s identity—is certainly harmonious with the Sacred Heart of Jesus, which beats for all his beloved children, including LGBTQ+ folks. Celebrate both!
Another good friend has written a fantastic piece about how the Sacred Heart of Jesus beats for his LGBTQ+ beloved ones. Again, tolle lege!
“Stop identifying with your sin!”
This is probably the most common anti-LGBTQ+ sentiment LGBTQ+ folks hear from Christians, and the one which requires a nuanced response.
The first thing to note is that simply being LGBTQ+ is not a sin. Usually those who tell LGBTQ+ people to “stop identifying with their sin” are making a lot of assumptions about how we are living our lives—assuming at least that we are regularly having sex, and maybe also assuming a kind of “gay lifestyle” that has for so long occupied the Christian imagination. Certainly many LGBTQ+ people are having sex, and many more are at least open to having sex; in that case, there is a simple disagreement about what constitutes “sin,” a disagreement that could lead to a fruitful conversation about theology and sexual ethics if it is approached with humility and curiosity. As for me and a great many of my friends, we plan on never having sex, so the accusation that we are identifying with our sexual sin falls a little flat.
Being LGBTQ+, in my way of thinking, is so much more than sexual desire. Indeed, as someone who finds themselves on the asexual spectrum, sexual desire does not play as significant a role in my life as it does in others. Being LGBTQ+ involves what others have called a sensibility, a way of looking at the world shaped by unique desire but by no means reducible to its sexual aspect. Being LGBTQ+ involves non-sexual desires and attraction (such as aesthetic, emotional, physical/tactile, etc.), real sacrificial love, a sense of community and history, a culture, a unique social location, etc. To conflate “being LGBTQ+” with sexual activity is, ironically, a way of over-sexualizing us—an accusation often leveled against LGBTQ+ folks ourselves.
This objection is also framed by the concept of “identification,” which is ambiguous enough to mean any number of things, such as: 1) merely using a particular identity label, 2) expressing solidarity with others who have a shared experience, or 3) considering something to be the most important or defining characteristic of one’s life. I will examine each of these three.
If “identification” merely means using an identity label, I admit I don’t really understand why it is so important to avoid using them. We all use plenty of identity labels of varying levels of importance all the time: American, mother, sports fan, backseat driver, sinner. Three out of five of those identity labels in that last sentence do not even appear in the Bible! Calling oneself “LGBTQ+” can be helpful in connecting us to a community of others like us.
If “identification” means expressing solidarity with those who have a shared experience, again, I’m not sure what the problem is. Even if one were to assume being LGBTQ+ is merely a persistent pattern of sexual temptation (as I said, I have real problems with this way of thinking, but go with me for a moment), using an identity label to describe that can still be extraordinarily helpful. Think, for instance, of various twelve-step communities which suggest that words like “alcoholic” and “addict” can be helpful tools in seeking recovery and in finding a supportive community. It also should be said that it is normal and good to use a label to express who and how one loves!
But if “identification” means considering something to be the most important or defining characteristic of one’s life, I can understand how “identifying as LGBTQ+” could be problematic. Placing one’s entire identity in any one aspect of their lives can be disastrous, and of course, as a Christian, I believe that all our identities as believers must rest on the sure foundation of Christ. But simply calling oneself “LGBTQ+” does not mean making it the foundation of our lives, any more than calling oneself an “American” does.
It is also important to note that one can make an aspect of their lives their foundation without using an identity label to describe it (majority identities—those which can most easily be understood as “normal”—are especially prone to this!). And in my experience, non-LGBTQ+ folks can oftentimes be far more obsessed with LGBTQ+ identity than LGBTQ+ folks ourselves, and can thus make it difficult for LGBTQ+ people to live integrated and balanced lives.
…
The final verse of “Ambling Alp” closes out the song by adding a couple more layers to the theme of “stick up for yourself”: what to expect out of life, and what to do with the woundedness one will inevitably suffer. The last line in particular strikes me as especially appropriate for Pride Month:
Now, the world can be an unfair place at times,
but your lows will have their complement of highs.
And if anyone should cheat you,
take advantage of, or beat you,
raise your head and wear your wounds with pride.
Pride, for me, is a time to “raise my head and wear my wounds with pride.” Being LGBTQ+ is not just or even primarily about woundedness, of course; I don’t want to reduce being LGBTQ+ to the particular kinds of prejudice we often encounter, any more than I want to reduce it to a desire for a particular kind of sex. But Pride provides for me and for many others a time to ground ourselves in a sense of our dignity and a fondness for our lives, even as we often find ourselves in various storms of animosity and antagonism. It is a time, in other words, to “stick up for ourselves.” Happy Pride, beloved!
With apologies, I have chosen to use the phrase “LGBTQ+” because I feel the points I make are broadly applicable to many in the LGBTQ+ community, but some of what I say naturally focuses on what I know best as a cisgender, gay graysexual man—and this means it does not map neatly on to transgender experience. Trans folks are welcome and encouraged to offer their thoughts!
Grant, this is an excellent post. And I’m a fellow asexual, actually, who is not sexually attracted to anyone, and am a Catholic layman who made a private vow of celibacy almost a year ago.
A couple questions for you:
1.) Can we connect through e-mail? We seem to have similar vocations, and friendship and prayer are a big part of my vocation, and I’d love to support you in one or both of those ways.
2.) I don’t have a problem with Pride Month in theory, but in practice I tend to avoid festivities around it because of how sexualized many of the festivities are that celebrate it, plus I think drag shows are misogynistic and highly sexualized.
Given the above I just described, are there activities during Pride Month that are just about support, friendship, and fellowship and don’t have the sexualized stuff or drag or anything like that? If there are, then that is stuff I could in good conscience support.
Thanks for this. I found your reflections on the subject of pride to be very relevant in general, as well as to the LGBTQ+ community. You’ve also succeeded in making me go and listen to Ambling Alp. It’s a good song!