Snakes are dangerous, said Buddha. If you want to catch snakes it is not enough to know where they are and how to trap them. You must also know how to handle them. If you mishandle a snake it can make you very sick, or even kill you. Religion, said Buddha, is like a snake. Mishandling it is dangerous.

The Conference was intriguingly misnamed. It was suggested that the roots of anti-homosexual prejudice are more cultural than religious. As the Venerable Tejadhammo pointed out, Buddha said nothing about homosexuality - and yet the Dalai Lama, speaking from his Tibetan background, declared it wrong. Christians at the Conference understood this. Like the Buddha, Jesus said nothing about homosexuality, yet for centuries Christians have been the victims of cultural anti-homosexual prejudices that have nothing to do with Jesus’ message.

Rev. Dr David Bromell, an ordained minister in the Methodist Church of New Zealand, suggested that ‘homophobia’ is also a misnomer.  A phobia is a persistent and irrational fear; it leads people to avoid the thing they fear; and sufferers can benefit from therapy and medication.  Using this definition, homophobia is not a phobia at all.  It is prejudice.

The term ‘homophobia’ was coined in the context of the debate about homosexuality’s medical status, and popularised by George Weinberg is his 1972 book, Society and the Healthy Homosexual. Weinberg’s book asked who was truly sick: homosexuals or homophobes? Society’s answer at the moment appears to be neither. Some churches, however, are still trying to ‘cure’ homosexuals.  David Marr, journalist and author of The High Price of Heaven, talked about the para-church organisations that claim to ‘cure’ homosexual people: Exodus; Courage; Liberty Christian Ministries. The assumption of these groups is that homosexuality is a choice and curing people of homosexuality restores them to their original condition.  As Mr Marr pointed out, the actual biographical details of homosexual people don’t count.  These ministries are too focused on their misguided attempts to force reality to fit their understanding of Scripture to care about reality.

Why is anti-homosexual prejudice so prevalent and so attractive? Various speakers attempted to answer the question. Dr Bromell suggested that homophobia polices gender boundaries, and pointed out that words like ‘poofter’ and ‘faggot’ are used by pre-adolescent boys to stigmatise gender deviants. The abuse has nothing to do with a boy’s actual sexuality and everything to do with perceptions of his masculinity.  Senator John Woodley suggested that extremist political groups need an enemy to vilify, brutalise and eliminate; and that homosexual people are a handy replacement for communists in extreme right-wing politics.  For churches, shrinking in an increasingly secular society, there is the attraction of maintaining an identity by defining who is in and who is out.  But anti-homosexual practice is most attractive, argues Dr Bromell, because it creates a feeling of solidarity and belonging.  Anti-homosexual prejudice is its own reward. 

This understanding of the pleasures of prejudice may lead to its ‘cure’.  It must be made as unpleasant as possible to express prejudice.  The goal, argues Dr Bromell, is to make it as shameful to express homophobia as it is to express racism or anti-Semitism.  Like anti-homosexual prejudice, both racism and anti-Semitism can be justified by a selective reading of Scripture; and have been justified by appeals to ‘nature’. The world has changed.  Racism and anti-Semitism are no longer acceptable.  Anti-homosexual prejudice must become unacceptable too.

Freeing religion from anti-homosexual prejudice is important. As the Rev. Dr Dorothy McRae-McMahon pointed out, religious prejudice is used by non-religious people as a reference point for their own hatred of homosexuals. The churches still have an influence on society and politics; and as long as religions give anti-homosexual prejudice a privileged status social and political equality will be impossible.

Which brings us back to the dangerous and life-threatening snake. The roots of homophobia may not be religious, but it is in religions that homophobia is expressed most clearly. So why do gay and lesbian people remain in religious institutions? Why were there Jewish, Catholic, Quaker, Unitarian and Uniting Church floats in the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras? Why do people feel the need to ‘come out’ twice; once as gay or lesbian and once as Jewish or Christian or Buddhist? Are religious gay and lesbian people masochists?
This was the key question of the final day of the Conference and it was answered in different ways. Judy Kell from the Jewish Group DAYENU talked about the joy of being involved in planning the Conference with Christians, and the joy of marching in Mardi Gras as both Jewish and lesbian. Michael Kelly said that we always need to be suspicious of our motives for remaining in religion. David Bromell told us to go where the life is and find the healing places in religion. Dorothy McRae-McMahon said that she stayed in the church because she refused to allow people to deny her God. For whatever reason, a lot of gay and lesbian people continue to brave the danger of handling the snake.