Getting Past Stereotypes

Anywhere in the state of North Carolina where gay activists gather, you are likely to find Connie Vetter. A Charlotte lawyer, Vetter is actively involved in lobbying for pro-gay legislation in Raleigh, and is usually one of the first lawyers homosexuals turn to if the legal dispute could turn on matters of sexual orientation. Charlotte World Editor Warren Smith spoke with Vetter about hate crimes legislation, about how the Christian community and the gay community "get along," and even about theology and scripture.

Warren Smith: Connie, start out by sharing with me your impressions of the evangelical community here in North Carolina.

Connie Vetter: My perception is that there are a lot of stereotypes and misunderstandings. My personal experience is that when I meet people as individuals, whether evangelical or conservative Christian, they are open. I found them to be open and willing to listen. I have had nothing but good experiences since I have been in Charlotte. Even people who I thought would have a problem with my sexuality have been fine individually, with a few exceptions.

Charlotte has a few really loud voices that get a lot of press. But in every place I have lived there are loud voices. O'Connor in Boston, for example. And there are people who could care less, or are quietly accepting, and I find that Charlotte is right on the line with all the other places I have lived. My experience has been I have had nothing but acceptance, except for the few loud voices.

But I try really hard not to assume that just because I know this one thing about somebody that they are identified as a conservative Christian or evangelical.

WS: You mentioned a Catholic bishop. What is your own religious faith?

CV: No I am not. I am a person of faith, but I am not in a home church at the moment. I was raised Protestant in the United Church of Christ, and since then I have not made a lot of effort to get into the church.

WS: When you say you are a person of faith what do you mean?

CV: I believe in God and Jesus Christ and in that higher power. There lies the basis of my faith. In terms of church, you know, I believe that ultimately the Bible is about love and the essence of love, so in finding a church that is what I am looking for.

WS: It sounds as if you have a fairly high view of the Bible, or at least what it has to say about love. But scripture has some fairly direct statements about homosexuality that I assume you don't believe. How do you decide what to believe and what not to believe out of scripture?

CV: I am glad you asked me that. I am not a Bible scholar. I know what I feel and what I feel is that God is a God of love and the Bible is really at its core about love. I know that Jesus never made any statements about homosexuality.

WS: But he did about sexually purity in general. And in the Jewish world of that time it would have been accepted as a given, accepted universally, that homosexuality was wrong. So it is not surprising that Jesus would not comment on it directly, because it was not a part of the cultural landscape at the time.

CV: I am not sure that it was a given. It is not something I dwell on.

WS: I guess what I am getting around to is by what authority-other than what you feel-can you make a statement that homosexuality is OK, when both scripture and the law are pretty explicit about it. And, a related question, how can people who believe that homosexuality is morally and legally wrong make themselves heard in the public square today on issues such as same sex domestic partner benefits and homosexual marriage, and related issues. It seems as though Christians are expected to be tolerant of homosexual activism, but if we have conscientious moral objections to what that activism espouses, we are called homophobes, or are expected to keep quiet.

CV: Again, you have asked questions in terms of the scripture, but homosexuality didn't make it into the top ten, the Ten Commandments.

WS: But the Ten Commandments do forbid adultery, and Jesus amplifies the definition of adultery to include lust of various kinds. What would your interpretation of adultery be?

CV: Adultery is when somebody who is married is going outside that marriage.

WS: So unmarried people engaging in a sexual relationship does not fit your definition. I guess I can see that, in some ways. I think scripture, in fact, would not call that adultery, but fornication.

CV: I think we are both venturing out of our league in terms of scholarship, so I don't want to go too much into this. But I will say that homosexuality is not discussed in the Ten Commandments. Lesbianism is not addressed across the board. So if someone wants to be a literalist, lesbianism is not addressed so that must make it OK. I am sure that argument is not intended by the literalists.

Secondly, if someone wants to be a literalist, then there are things in the Bible that people are not following, so how is that these people get to pick and choose? I live in the essence that the Bible is about love, so I don't loose any sleep over it.

And you mentioned the North Carolina sodomy law. The North Carolina sodomy law does not make homosexuality illegal. It does make certain behaviors illegal. It's illegal for anybody other than married people to have any sexual contacts. It makes it illegal whether it is two people of the same sex or two of the opposite sex. Now, why is it the only thing we hear in the media is about same sex? I could not tell you. Maybe you can. Answer that for me. But homosexuality is absolutely not illegal in this state.

WS: So the sodomy law doesn't make homosexual behavior illegal in this state?

CV: Well, there is homosexuality, and there are homosexual behaviors. The law makes homosexual behavior and heterosexual behavior illegal, if it is engaged in outside marriage. If you are going to use that law to make homosexuality illegal, then you are going to have to use it to make heterosexuality illegal.

WS: I am still not following that logic. The sodomy law makes certain sex acts between people who are not married illegal.

CV: The acts are illegal but the people are not. My sexuality is not defined by my sex acts. You are heterosexual. I am homosexual regardless of what either of us engage in...

WS: I understand that, and I will even grant you that point. That's not really at the heart of my concern here. My question is that even by granting the sexual orientation question, you still have the issue of deciding on what basis to make law and public policy. Your position is that resistance to same sex domestic partner benefits, and same-sex unions is wrong. My question is simply this: how can someone who believes in the sanctity of heterosexual marriage-someone who believes in marriage as a sacrament or ordinance of the church-express their views and support that view in the arena of public policy without being vilified and condemned?

CV: Because homosexual behavior and homosexuality are two different things and I know for some people it is hard to distinguish the two....

WS: No, I am acknowledging that. Here's my point. Bank of America offers same sex domestic partner benefits. But the laws in the states in which they operate do not recognize these "partnerships." What gives these corporations the right to essentially make public policy, usurping the democratic processes? And if an employee has moral objections to the organization for which he works using resources in this way, he essentially has no recourse.

CV: Corporations are not making public policy. They are making a business decision, and one of the wonderful things about North Carolina is they get to make business decisions.

WS: But they make business decisions within a framework. They operate within the laws of states and nations, or at least they are supposed to. Certainly they have a right to lobby for changes in law, but for a publicly traded company to, by fiat, engage in social engineering seems to be to be beyond business and approaching ideology. And those who object to this kind of social engineering have little voice or recourse.

CV: Now there aren't any laws about what benefits companies can and cannot offer. They are purely business decisions. Is this a cost effective way for me to run my business? Is this a way to recruit and keep good employees, especially in North Carolina? They are doing it because it's good business.

WS: What makes it good business for Bank of America to offer same sex domestic benefits?

CV: I don't work at Bank of America. I can imagine that they decided that there was a way to keep their employees happy and productive.

WS: Are there any studies that say same sex domestic benefits is a really an advantage?

CV: You may want to speak to Bank of America on that. I don't know. I appreciate the question, but I don't know the answer.

WS: I've never seen a study that says the net effect of same sex domestic partner benefits on recruiting and retention is positive. And, of course, any increased loyalty on the part of a minority of homosexual employees must be balanced by decreased loyalty from employees who find this kind of thing frustrating. My point in asking the question is don't such benefits amount not to equal rights but special rights?

CV: I am glad you asked me that. It's not a special right and here is why. Let's say I work for the company and the person in the cubicle next to me is married. Automatically they have all these benefits I don't have access to even though my relationship is as loving and committed as their relationship. The thing I want to clarify with you is that we have two types of marriages. We have a religious marriage, which I can do. I can get married in the church and get the blessing of God on my marriage, and then the legal.

WS: You mean having a homosexual marriage in your church right, the United Church of Christ.

CV: Yes, and in a number of churches.

WS: But it is not in the mainstream of Christian faith to sanction same sex marriages.

CV: It's all over the place. As you already know, a number of churches have dealt with it. Back to your question. Take hate crime legislation, for example. The difference with that, that people are having a hard time understanding when somebody is beat up because of a characteristic or perception of that person, they are being harmed as a member of that group, and not as an individual, and that is why this type of legislation is important because the harming of the person is designed to scare the group. That is very different from what you normally hear about.

WS: Many Christians do feel that hate crime legislation does amount to special rights and not equal rights. For example, if someone beat you up, even if it is because you are a lesbian, there are a ton of laws that make that person accountable, assault and battery laws, murder laws if you happened to be killed. My question is, why is there one more law needed to punish that person when what he has already done is illegal and is already punishable under the law? I think hate crime legislation isn't necessary because there is a full range of legal protection for you as a human being. In fact, it seems to me that hate crime legislation has the unintended consequence of segregating you from the mainstream culture.

CV: The hate crime legislation is about saying that as the state of North Carolina we honor and respect our citizens and visitors of this state. And, you know, the group that has had the most special rights historical has been white men of privilege. Access to jobs, access to money, access to property. And at the expense of everyone else. They were never thought of as special rights, because that was just how it was. Now others are asking for a piece of the pie, and it's hard to give up power. A lot of people are scared about what that means, and that's too bad.