My city is currently gripped by grief over the death of a local LGBTQ+ teen named Nex Benedict. A couple of weeks ago, Nex was in a fight at school with three other students, and after sustaining some sort of head injury, died at the much-to-young age of 16. Nex was non-binary, and variously used she/her and they/them pronouns. A lot about Nex’s death is still not known, but what is known is this: a child died, and people in my state (and across the entire country) are deeply grieved by the ending of a life too soon, no matter the circumstances around that death.
Of course, when I say “my city” or “my state”, I wish I could say I was referring to everyone who lives in these places. But, as is far too often the case in Oklahoma, this is just not the case. Nex’s death, and the subsequent grief, has caused some fearful and small-minded people to react in hate and revulsion, as if they know deep within their souls that their continued actions and words about our LGBTQ+ siblings somehow contributes to deaths like Nex’s. Many of these same people want to appropriate the name “Christian” to lend support to their continued, backward attempt to turn LGBTQ+ people into an “other” who is outside the bounds of those they are committed to loving, protecting, and respecting. It is a heresy to use the name of Jesus Christ in this way, but one so common that many fail to see it for what it is: the opposite of the Gospel.
One of these heretics is state Senator Tom Wood, a Republican from Tahlequah (about an hour east of Tulsa.) In the wake of the death of a child, Senator Woods decided that now was the appropriate time to use the word “filth” to refer to LGBTQ+ people like Nex, and like a number of his own constituents that he supposedly was elected to represent the interests of (he clearly doesn’t take that part of his job very seriously, at least when it comes to people who look, think, believe or love differently from him.)
Senator Woods has a very distinctive political theology he laid out in his remarks, one that is remarkably common in the places where a lot of Christians are found today: “We are a religious state. We are going to fight to keep that filth out of the state of Oklahoma, because we’re a Christian state. We’re a rural state. We want to lower taxes, and for people to live and work, and to go to the faith they choose.” This was the Senator’s answer to a question about Nex and the effect of legislation pending before our legislature here that places restrictions on LGBTQ+ people in Oklahoma.
Let’s just be really clear about this: we are not, in fact, a Christian state. I have many beloved friends here in Tulsa, and in other parts of the state, who are Jewish, or Muslim, or not religious at all. Our state, following the wise example of the First Amendment to the US Constitution, avoids establishing a state religion, and is constructed on a liberal democratic framework that presupposes the freedom of people to engage in whatever religion they choose to, without the state imposing one on them from above. This means that, in lawmaking, the state should not be enacting laws restricting the rights of people not just to practice their faith as they see fit, but their right to live their lifes in the way they choose to do so insofar as that living doesn’t restrict someone else’s right to do so as well. What this means is, kids like Nex Benedict have a right to exist just as they are; the fact that Nex was LGBTQ+, and went by certain pronouns, is completely and reasonably within their rights.
But, our leaders like Senator Tom Woods and Governor Kevin Stitt would like to restrict these freedoms, and more so, they would like to cast moral opprobrium on people like Nex, and worst of all, they want to do so in the name of Jesus Christ. As a Christian myself, let me just say, this is the worst kind of heresy, and aggrieves me deeply as a person of faith. I would never want the God I worship – the God of unconditional and boundless love, seen most clearly in the example of Jesus Christ, who loved and served and died to show us the full extent of God’s regard for us – to be used to denigrate and demean anyone, but especially not the most vulnerable among us. Our God is a God of the lonely and the oppressed, of the outcast and the marginalized, of the orphan and the widow and the immigrant. Our God tears down the mighty – the Senators and the Governors – in favor of the weak and the meek among us. Our God abhors empty worship and showy faith, and loves those who do justice and love kindness and walk humbly. Our God stands on the side our LGBTQ+ siblings, because God stands on the side of those who love wholly and without reservation, and against those who would restrict love and the welcoming of all peoples into God’s family.
God never calls people filth; God always comes to us with love, and calls us to act in the same way. Please send your prayers towards the family and friends of Nex Benedict, but also spare a prayer for the soul of Tom Woods; his heresy is dragging him down a bad road.
Justin DaMetz 