Il cammino dei cristiani lgbt+ nella città di Utrecht (Paesi Bassi)

Testo pubblicato da Gianna Mula e David Bos sul sito Queer U Stories (Paesi Bassi), liberamente tradotto da Gianna Mula

A Utrecht, come nel resto dei Paesi Bassi, a partire dagli anni Cinquanta si sono verificati profondi cambiamenti nel rapporto tra fede cristiana e omosessualità. Molte persone, sia all’interno che all’esterno della chiesa, si sono battuti per il dialogo, la visibilità e l’accettazione. La città è stata teatro di manifestazioni che hanno avuto eco in tutti i Paesi Bassi.

Fino alla metà del XX secolo, l’omosessualità era considerata dalle chiese cristiane – e non solo – come un peccato, una malattia o entrambe le cose. La situazione iniziò a cambiare negli anni Cinquanta, quando i pastori cattolici e protestanti, così come gli psichiatri, cominciarono a considerare gli omosessuali come individui bisognosi di comprensione. Sebbene le chiese continuassero a condannare l’omosessualità, si sviluppò una maggiore attenzione per il “prossimo omosessuale”.

In 1958, the National Catholic Mental Health Office established the Pastoral Office to provide psychological and spiritual help to Catholics who were having difficulty with their homosexuality. Among its founders was the psychiatrist Kees Trimbos, who worked at the Catholic Mental Health Foundation in Amsterdam.
In 1961 Trimbos made a radio series on mental and sexual health, in which he spoke openly about homosexuality.
In 1959, the Amsterdam Reformed pastor SJ Ridderbos published an article in which he argued that the Bible does not prohibit “real” homosexuality, but only ritual homosexuality honoring pagan deities.

Pastoral care for homosexuals

In the 1960s, ecclesiastical or "pillarized" initiatives in support of homosexuals multiplied and the sensitivity of pastors towards the issues of faith and sexual identity grew.

Like Trimbos, Pastor Alje Kramer (1923-1986), spoke with compassion and empathy about homosexuality on his monthly radio talk show in June 1961. This immediately led to grateful responses.

In 1962, a national and interdenominational working group was established for pastoral help for homosexuals. In 1968, this working group asked the Minister of Justice to grant royal approval to the COC (the support association for homosexuals), which at the time was still necessary for the organisation's legal personality.

The preachers R. Brussaard, A. Klamer and the Catholic father J. Gottschalk – driving forces of this working group – organized local meetings and founded Contact Groups for Homophiles (now the Kringen group), which offered a Christian alternative to the COC . Several clubs were also founded in Utrecht in the late 1960s.

Towards a gay Christian movement

Thanks to the work done by progressives, homosexuality increasingly became a topic of discussion within churches and beyond. Especially among students, these developments were rapid.
In the 1960s their number increased considerably and new ecclesial initiatives were undertaken, including the Amsterdamse Studentenekklesia, dedicated to students. The co-founder, Jesuit Father Jan van Kilsdonk, provided one-on-one pastoral care to students, including visiting them in gay clubs, and aimed to open the church to all.

In 1970, inspired by the example of Amsterdam, the Evangelical University Church (EUG) of Utrecht was founded: a collaboration between the student parishes of the Reformed Protestants, the Reformed Protestants and the Roman Catholics.

Over the years, the EUG welcomed many LGBTQIA+ Christians as members and even as pastoral workers.

One of these was the lesbian Reformed student pastor Anna Wies Rijpkema (1945-2005). She had been the first woman to study theology in Kampen in 1964 and by 1972 she was active in the gay and lesbian movement, including in the Utrecht COC.

Shortly before, in 1970, the Reverend Hans van der Werf had started the “city ministry” in Utrecht Cathedral. Until his death in 1979, the church was a place of worship frequented by the city's gays and lesbians.

The struggle for gay emancipation in the 1970s was largely directed against authorities and institutions perceived as oppressive, including the Catholic Church.

In 1970, the Vatican – alarmed by the radically progressive attitude of Dutch Catholics – appointed the conservative Joannes Gijsen as bishop of Roermond.

In 1979, he declared that communion should be refused to “practicing homophiles.” The reaction was strong. That Holy Saturday, which was renamed "Pink Saturday" by the promoters, four thousand people marched through the streets of Roermond with slogans such as "Gijsen, faggot!".

In addition to "faggots" and lesbians, their parents, ecclesiastical groups and even a friar also demonstrated, while around 300 pastors were among the signatories of a petition.

Pink Saturday has become a regular event for the Dutch LGBTQIA+ movement, which travels to a different city every year. Since then three editions have been held in Utrecht.

Working groups

Believing homosexuals within the gay movement who had decided not to renounce their faith began to take matters into their own hands, for example by creating working groups.

In Utrecht, for example, at least four "contact groups" already existed at the beginning of the 1970s, and the Christian members of the COC met starting from 1974 in the working group for the information of the Churches (subsequently, in 1978, a national working group COC Faith and philosophy of life was established).

In the Utrecht COC, in the mid-1980s, some members who rejected any approach to religious institutions founded the Atheist Faggots Working Group (WAF), which did not achieve much, apart from some not very fruitful discussions.

In 1978, Dutch Catholic priests, pastoral workers and theology students founded the Association of Homosexual Catholic Pastors (WKHP).

Five years later, in 1983, the WKHP published the results of a survey conducted among the priests and pastoral workers of the diocese of Utrecht, Homosexual and Pastor. The survey addressed parish priests' attitudes and concerns toward their homosexual parishioners and how homosexual parish priests interacted with their colleagues and their faith community.
Most interviewees from the diocese of Utrecht showed much more understanding and openness than the Vatican.

In 1979, Protestant theologians also gathered in the Association of Homosexual Theologians (now the Association of Queer Theologians).

Informal groups of young lesbians and gays of different denominations have sprung up everywhere, some of which, like ContrariO or the Christian Gay Youth Contact CHJC, have set up chapters throughout the Netherlands.

Working groups of parents of gay children in various denominations also arose in the 1980s and 1990s, such as the liberated reformed Protestant association Koinotès.

Starting in the 1960s, the position of women (lesbians) in the Church began to change, moving from a silent majority to an active challenge of the status quo.

Women aspired to positions of responsibility in the Church and began to study theology in ever greater numbers.

In the 1970s, feminist theology became a crucial topic of conversation and paved the way for what would later evolve into lesbian theology.

In 1985, lesbian and other women founded the working group “Lesbians and Theology”. In 1990, the Verkeerd Verbonden Network was founded by women's groups and individual lesbian women committed to faith.

Both in the Faculty of Theology of Utrecht (National) University and in the Catholic Theological University (KTU) gay discussion groups were started, including Sint Sebastiaan (for men only; 1983). This was followed in 1988 by the founding of the lesbian theological working group Sappho by Anne van Voorthuizen and Conny van Lier.

Thus, the time was ripe for the creation of a National Coordination Point for Church and Homosexuality Groups (LKP, in 1987) to support and strengthen the network of Christian organizations. The bimonthly magazine Vroom & Vrolijk (1989-2007), aimed at lesbian and gay Christians, began its publications in this period.

Fire in the archdiocese of Utrecht

Especially in the Catholic Church, all these grassroots movements went unheeded. On the contrary, after the cautiously progressive path of the 1960s, in the following decades ample space was once again given to conservative positions.

Monsignor Simonis was appointed archbishop of Utrecht by Pope John Paul II in 1980. Simonis was very close to the Vatican's positions on homosexuality, expressed among other things in the encyclical Persona Humana (1975), which strongly condemned homosexual behavior.

The gay community, feminists and progressive Catholics did not hide their rejection of Simonis' positions. During his installation in the Cathedral of Saint Catherine, some gays and lesbians and their families organized a protest in the square. They sang so loudly that their protest songs could be heard on television footage.
Simonis called on clergy and pastoral workers to adopt a less open approach towards homosexuality. This included not only a ban on blessing their unions, but also a ban on people known to be homosexual from participating in the Eucharist.

In 1985, the visit of Pope John Paul II led to more open protests, involving not only progressive Catholics but also feminists and homosexuals. The Pope was welcomed in Utrecht with various demonstrations.
Upon his arrival in the city, Sunday 12 May, the members of the "anti-pope committee" marched through the city center with slogans such as "Pope go Rome" and "Ecce Homo", and around four thousand demonstrators gathered around the Fair.

The Pope was diverted towards a side entrance while the mobile unit and the demonstrators - a heterogeneous mix of squatters, anarchists and fags - engaged in physical clashes, injuring people and resulting in 14 arrests.

During the stop at the Fair, the Pope faced criticism from Hedwig Wasser, leader of the May Otto Movement, a progressive Catholic platform that criticized the anti-democratic attitude of the Roman Curia.
Wasser asked the Pope to include those excluded from the Church: unmarried cohabitants, divorcees, married priests, homosexuals and women. Both clashes made headlines around the world that day.

The protests during the papal visit did not soften the position of his supporters.

In 1987, Bishop Simonis went so far as to say that Catholic landlords could refuse to rent their rooms to gays or lesbians.
The COC responded by organizing a well-attended torchlight procession to the bishop's palace, followed by a demonstration. The legal proceedings that the COC brought against Simonis had no consequences.
The court ruled that the bishop's statements were in line with a religious doctrine professed by the Catholic Church for centuries.

Beyond acceptance

After centuries of condemnation and prejudice, many LGBT+ men and women decided to completely distance themselves from the Church, which they sometimes even considered the number one enemy. Others, however, sought acceptance within their (ecclesial) community and together with supportive fellow believers achieved full emancipation.

An example: in 1986, in the context of Pink Saturday in Utrecht, a wide range of events were organized for Pink Week. One of them was a gathering organized by EUG members with activities for lesbian and gay believers. The promotional material for the event spoke the language of those years of action: lesbians and "faggots" asked for recognition and respect rather than the tolerance of the church and the mockery of the gay community.

Words became deeds, even within some churches. In 1986, after years of reflection, the Remonstrant Brotherhood decided that its new ecclesiastical order would no longer contain an article on the blessing of marriages, but only on the blessing of life pacts between two (adult) people who promise mutual love and fidelity. .
In this way, they officially opened the doors – the first denomination in Europe and 15 years before the legalization of civil marriage in the Netherlands – to the public affirmation of homosexual relationships.

The first celebrations took place in 1987, and gay and lesbian believers even came from abroad to receive the religious blessing. Even before the Remonstrants offered official celebrations, same-sex couples had participated in unofficial and sometimes clandestine rituals.
Christian couples had their union blessed in secret by benevolent pastors, although the blessing of same-sex couples remained a difficult issue for many other congregations.
On the Sunday before Pink Saturday 1988, Pastor Rijpkema of the EUG was the first to hold a gay-themed celebration in the Janskerk, Pink Sunday.

This Utrecht initiative would become an annual tradition. In the following years, Utrecht was repeatedly the scene of larger protests and demonstrations, in which, among others, the Association of Homosexual Catholic Pastors and other activists participated.

On 9 December 1989, the LKP, in collaboration with the Council of Churches, organized a study day entitled “Beyond Acceptance”. In a report, the organizers summarized the developments of the previous decade. The report was shared with church leaders and their views became guidelines for activists.

Equal Treatment Act

A long struggle, starting in the 1970s, for a new Equal Treatment Act (AWGB) was won in 1994. The basis of this law is mainly Article 1 of the Dutch Constitution. The Utrecht-based Labor Party Home Affairs Minister, Ien Dales, was instrumental in the final stages before the adoption of the AWGB in 1992.

The law was soon put into practice when in 1997, under pressure from the Vatican, Utrecht's gay student theological disputes came under scrutiny.

Until then, these independent groups, like others, were mentioned in the information brochures of both theological programs and participation was rewarded with course credits. But in early 1997, the KTU declared that students would no longer receive credit for their participation in Sappho or Sint Sebastiaan.

The LKP turned to the Equal Treatment Commission, which found at the end of the year that the KTU was discriminating against students because of their sexual orientation.

Queer Christians in Utrecht today

At the beginning of the 21st century, many Western countries have enacted positive legislation for LGBT+ people, accompanied by greater acceptance and visibility in society.

Presumably in response, religious fundamentalists who oppose queer integration have gained strength. The biggest struggles still concern the legitimacy of homosexual couples and their desire to have children, conversion therapies to "cure" homosexuality and the concept of gender identity.

The Netherlands legalized civil marriage for same-sex partners on 1 April 2001.

Many other countries followed, including the United States in 2016. In the first decade of this century, the Dutch Protestant Church and some small liberal Protestant denominations officially authorized the blessing of same-sex unions.

The Old Catholic Church did the same, but the Catholic Church of Rome remained adamantly against it.

In 2017, US evangelicals resonated around the world with initiatives like the Nashville Declaration. The statement calls homosexuality immoral and denies the legitimacy of same-sex couples and transgender identities. The document was also published in the Netherlands in 2018 and signed by around 250 church leaders from different denominations.

Fierce reactions against the statement came from both LGBT+ Christian organizations and other members of the Dutch and world churches. The heated debates that followed showed the scale of the global conflict.

While the Roman Catholic Church proclaims 'gender ideology' (the distinction between biological sex and culturally influenced gender) as the greatest danger of our time, in the Netherlands, within the Dutch Protestant Church and the Anglican Church, Transgender people are now welcomed and facilitated with rituals in which the person introduces himself with his new name and receives a blessing.

The Dutch government, thanks to the efforts of national queer organizations, has also taken steps to legally ban conversion therapies that have long been offered in some (Orthodox) religious communities.

“Healing” therapy is designed to change people's sexual orientation or gender identity, with often severely traumatic consequences for those who receive it.

Queer activists continue to support small and large initiatives outside and within churches to promote visibility and inclusion.

Foundations like Wijdekerk share online maps of “safe” churches, where queer people can fully participate in community life.

Long-standing organizations pool their resources and continue to offer support to young and old queer believers, such as ContrariO and CHJC who work together under the name ChristenQueer.

LGBTQIA+ Christians in Utrecht have access to many churches and communities open to them. The ecumenical congregation Janskerk (formerly EUG) still offers a safe haven and has hosted the celebration of Pink Sunday for more than 30 years, together with several Protestant, Baptist and Old Catholic denominations.

In conclusion

Much has changed for LGBT+ Christians in the last 70 years: dozens of queer Christians, pastors and pastoral workers are active in the city and its churches, but full acceptance within the ecclesial community is still a dream for many.

At the same time, Christian gays and lesbians have finally regained their place in the queer community as active participants.

Original text: lhbtqia+ christenen in de Domstad