I don’t think cishet folks Christians – even those who think of themselves as “inclusive” – can really get how tenuous it can feel to be an LGBTQ person in the Church.

And not tenuous because of God, but because of them.

Like, I’m a priest in Christ’s one holy catholic and apostolic Church and I still am kinda waiting for the straight majority to change their minds and revoke my membership.

(I know this isn’t how it works.)

And maybe that’s the reason I never went in & bought the “Inclusive Orthodoxy” t-shirt (though I really do think it’s cute, @theodramatist):

I’m not sure what the terms of my inclusion are.
I never really have been.

And there’s always the lingering fear that exclusion is near.

Orthodoxy as a sign of unity has always drawn attention to the way that my very existence is a sign of division.

(I know it’s not in any absolute sense.)

Sometimes it feels like “LGBTQ inclusion” into “inclusive orthodox” spaces has expected that the radical queering of social norms that come with LGBTQ identities won’t or shouldn’t have any sway on how even our sense of *orthodoxy* is socially conditioned.

That’s off limits.

When I see LGBTQ Christians who are part of the Inclusive Orthodoxy movement cast aspersions at Christians who don’t hold to social norms around sex, gender, or identity, I get super confused.

Like, did we just get invited here to replicate the same moralism & judgment?

Questions of belonging, behavior, authority, and expectations as it pertains to LGBTQ people, and perhaps to sexuality and gender more broadly, have not adequately been adequately answered (or maybe even explored?) in even the most inclusive of Christian traditions.

All I know is that God wanted me to be here, so here I am.

And maybe that’s enough for now.

Maybe that can be enough for those of you who relate to or identity with this (unplanned and unedited) thread.

God’s will queers.

I think that’s good news.