“I’m Gay, Not Queer. It Matters.”
That was the June 30 title of a New York Times essay written by young, self-identified Christian author Matthew Vines.
Vines, who became a darling of gay Christians in 2015 with the publication of his book, “God and the Gay Christian,” argued in his NYT piece that the rise in anti-LGBTQ+ sentiment can be attributed, in part, to the revival and rehabilitation of the word ‘queer.’
“Same-sex orientation is better thought of as a part of a wider rebellion against social norms,” the Harvard-educated Vines wrote. “This worldview is best expressed in one word: ‘queer,’ which is often used interchangeably with ‘gay’ these days.”
Vines, who married his husband four years ago and who was raised in the mainstream culture of the Presbyterian Church, USA, went on to say, “The two words don’t mean the same thing. And in that difference lies a danger for our hard-fought equality.”
Equality, for Vines, put simply, is the fruit of normalcy or assimilation.
In terms of marriage, that normalcy is exhibited by adopting the framework for same-sex marriage that sees it as “a covenant designed to reflect God’s self-giving love for humanity through the sacrificial [read: monogamous] love of spouses for each other. This is, I admit,” he wrote, “a far from radical vision of gay relationships.”
In other words, gay relationships should mirror the accepted ideal of straight ones.
Vines understands ‘queer’ as an identity as something radical, outside of the norm. He quoted openly gay scholar David Halperin, “Queer is by definition whatever is at odds with the normal, legitimate, the dominant.” By that standard, Vines said, “same-sex relationships could be queer, but so could open marriages, prostitution and public sex, even when heterosexual.”
“As a 19-year-old, I found freedom by coming to understand that there is nothing inherently radical or subversive about being gay…I could fall in love and build a life with someone without being confined to the closet or shunted to the margins of society,” Vines concluded his essay. “The gay rights movement changed the world — and changed my life — by showing being gay is not a rebellion against ordinary life. It is simply one way of living it, every bit as dignified and human as being straight.”
Reaction was immediate, especially in religious circles.
Asheville’s Flamy Grant, a Christian country music singer-songwriter and drag performer, took to Facebook to call out Vines.
“I’m from the south,” Grant wrote, “so all I can say is: bless his little homo heart. There is no such thing as a normal gay person, Matthew. Our subversion of social norms is our power, friends. We exist in God’s creation specifically to be a thorn in the side of those who demand conformity.”
Christian author Brandan Robertson, who identifies as a queer theologian and pastor, has been one of the most vocal critics of Vine’s position.
Robertson, named to the 2025 Out100 List, whose latest book is aptly titled “Queer Christian,” has written several posts on his Substack and recorded several short videos taking Vines to task.
His immediate response, published on June 30, was titled, “Queer Isn’t the Threat. Respectability Politics Is.”
For Robertson, the gay assimilationist movement, especially as seen in religious circles, “amounts to a defense of the privilege of a portion of the LGBTQ+ community at the expense of the rest…it clings to a utopian vision in which gays and lesbians can be accepted in society and religion so long as they conform to every other ‘norm’ required of them, ignoring the millions of transgender, nonbinary, asexual, bisexual, and queer people who exist in every corner of this country.”
Robertson claimed Vines has made the mistake of ignoring the “reality that the Republican Party has largely been taken over by Christian Nationalist extremists,” which accounts, in his view, for the surge in anti-LGBTQ+ sentiment and legislation, including efforts to reverse the Obergefell decision of 2015 by SCOTUS.
When Vines claimed that gay men have nothing in common with nonbinary or trans people, Robertson retorted, “The truth is gay men do have something in common with nonbinary and trans people and queer people (and every non-conforming human being): the Republican evangelical right despises them and wants to take away their fundamental freedoms simply because of the identity and orientation.”
Emma Cieslik, a queer neurodivergent religious scholar, responded to Vines by writing in the Los Angeles Blade that, “…being LGBTQ+ is a revolutionary act because American society was and continues to be built on heteronormative, cisgender standards.”
Reacting to the Vines essay in an article published by Good Faith Media, Kelly Cawthon-Freels, author, spiritual director and bi-vocational pastor, pointed out, “While political attacks against queer people seen as ‘extremely other’ only increase, Vines has effectively laid out, on a silver platter, fuel for queer phobic conservatives to say, ‘See? Even the ‘reasonable’ gays don’t want these extreme folks.”
The debate goes beyond just what word to use when identifying yourself. It touches on sexual ethics in general.
Vines, because of his assimilationist views, rejects non-marital sexual activity. “I believe sex should be for marriage, and I believe that’s true whether you’re gay, bisexual or straight,” he said in a 2024 interview with Melody Rachel.
Robertson rejects the traditional view that a marriage relationship between two people is the only legitimate context for sex, opting for a queer sexual ethic.
He wrote, “For those who are in an open or polyamorous relationship . . . I want you to hear me loud and clear as a minister of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Your relationships are holy. They are beautiful, and they are welcomed and celebrated in this space.”
The only contextual requirement for sex from his point of view is that one “be honest and respectful and self-sacrificial and consensual and loving with your partners.”
The debate of “normal” versus “queer” is not new.
In 2023, openly gay social critic Andrew Sullivan published an essay on The Weekly Dish titled “The Queers Versus The Homosexuals.”
Sullivan argued that the relatively speedy success of gay rights was due in large measure to “the emergence of so many ordinary gays and lesbians — of all races, religions, backgrounds, classes, and politics — who told their own story.”
He continued, “They [gays and lesbians] were not some strange, alien tribe. They were just like every other human, part of our families and communities, and we cared about each other.”
The villain, for Sullivan?
“These activists, marinated in critical gender and queer theory, have picked several unnecessary fights and, especially since the convulsions of 2020, have pushed and pushed a woke revolution until a dangerous backlash was inevitable.”
According to Sullivan, “queers now run what was once the gay rights movement.”
In a May 2023 piece in Spiked titled “Homophobia in drag,” Ben Appel, author of the memoir, “Cis White Gay: The Making of a Gender Heretic,” noted, “In 2017, at the age of 33, I enrolled at Columbia University, New York to complete my undergraduate degree. There, I was shocked to discover how gay activism had evolved since marriage equality became the law of the land. The focus was now entirely on personal pronouns and on being ‘queer.’”
Appel takes issue with gender-affirming care for minors and, according to his essay, how that has resulted in the “queer” world calling him a “transphobic bigot.” The subtitle of his Spiked piece is: “Transgender ideology [representative of all things queer] has breathed new life into a dark, old prejudice.”
Are gays and lesbians supposed to be just like everybody else in society? Get married, adopt a couple of kids, join the Rotary Club, assimilate into the predominant culture? Or are LGBTQ+ folks, by their very existence, already outside of that norm — queer, if you will?
No doubt the debate will continue.
This story is brought to you by Rosedale Health and Wellness and Dudley’s Place.
