Since I first heard Macklemore’s Same Love in 2012, I’ve had a strange resonance with its message. This is odd because I’m a Conservative-Christian. That is, I not only adhere to the historic creeds of the church, but I’m seeking ordination in a denomination which adds even more confessional standards to the bunch! Perhaps more to the point, I’m a Christian-Conservative. By my early twenties, I’d devoured the works of Christopher Dawson, William F. Buckley, and Russell Kirk. If I thought they’d come, I’d invite Charles Krauthammer and David Brooks to my birthday party.
With such an Alex P. Keaton-pedigree, how could I be drawn to the lyrics of a song which gives voice to the liberal cry for LGBTQ rights? Was I falling victim to the ol’ snappy rhythm-stupid lyric trap? Well, after hearing the song almost weekly for two years now, I’ve come to realize that my affinity for the message is not in spite of the lyrics, but because of the lyrics. In fact, I think the song can work as a sort of tract for explaining the position of Christian-Conservatives and Conservative-Christians. At its heart, Same Love argues: (1) Our view of sexuality is influenced by the culture. (2) Our personal sexuality is influenced by our “innate” selves. (3) Our sexuality is accountable to the one, true God.
First, our view of sexuality is influenced by the culture. At the beginning of the song, we’re given a story.
When I was in the 3rd grade I thought that I was gay ’cause I could draw,
My uncle was and I kept my room straight
I told my mom, tears rushing down my face, she’s like,
“Ben you’ve loved girls since before pre-K”
Trippin’, yeah, I guess she had a point, didn’t she?
A bunch of stereotypes all in my head
I remember doing the math like “Yeah, I’m good a little league”
A pre-conceived idea of what it all meant
For those who like the same sex had the characteristics
Macklemore thought he was gay because he had certain characteristics generally thought of as “feminine.” Thankfully, he had a thoughtful mother who told him that his sexuality is deeper than just his interests and sensibilities. In this regard, the church could learn a lot from Macklemore’s mom. Let me tell you a story not dissimilar to the one Macklemore recounts. This one, an amalgamation of the stories of a number of my gay friends who were raised in conservative, evangelical churches, only to leave the faith for a gay lifestyle:
“With my friends from school, I was reading Dostoevsky, playing Mozart, and reciting Shakespeare. At youth group, I was playing ultimate cow-tongue Frisbee, Call of Duty, and sitting through services which reminded me of a pep rally. Because of my “weird” sensibilities, I was called gay by my church before I was ever accepted as a gay man by the community with which I now identify. At first, I didn’t think of myself as a homosexual; I just knew I wasn’t straight by my church’s standards. Two communities–two options–were before me; church community or gay community. Both groups told me that I had the sensibilities of the second group. So, eventually, I believed them both. Subsequently, I was embraced, nurtured, and freed by a loving community of gay friends at school.”
Perhaps our sharpest, most gifted church members left the faith because their church didn’t have the theological or liturgical tools to show them how the creation and preservation of art fits into the redemptive schema of God. Sure, as Christians, there are certain character-qualities that should typify the life of a man or woman. These qualities complement the qualities of the opposite sex. However, there are numerous sensibilities and personality traits which must not be viewed as statically masculine or feminine.
One of the reasons it’s so easy to create theories in which a figure from the past (like Abraham Lincoln) is gay, is because the traits typical of masculinity and femininity are constantly in flux. In Lincoln’s day, to have a public display of emotion was more acceptable of a man than a woman. Obviously, in Ronald Reagan’s day, that had changed. Thus, a modern reader can anachronistically infer something about a 18th or 19th century man’s sexual orientation from his “feminine” traits. Like Macklemore’s mom, the church needs to recover a healthy, biblical doctrine of masculinity and femininity-a doctrine which avoids stereotypes and accounts for the artist and the athlete.
Second, our personal sexuality is influenced by our “innate” selves. Now, we’ve seen that cultural views of masculinity and femininity have something to do with how we view “gay” and “straight,” and thus influence how we judge our own sexuality. However, that is not the whole story. The song goes on to say that we can’t allow these cultural stereotypes to influence our personal sexuality.
You [can’t] be cured with some treatment and religion
Man-made, rewiring of a pre-disposition
Playing God
To change your sexual identity is like playing God. You can’t just go through a procedure to “fix” your orientation. It is innate to you. Now, a tension is set up in the song. On the one hand, we’re born with physicality, with bodies. On the other hand, the song suggests, just because one is born with female genitalia, does not mean that one *is* female. One may be born female, but, in fact, be male. Here, the song prioritizes the metaphysical over the physical. What you feel is innate and right. What you are physically is subjective and possibly wrong.
Here is the tension: that which is “innate” is sometimes physical and other times metaphysical. When it is the feeling of hate (which the song mentions), it is wrong and should be changed. When it is the feeling of attraction toward someone of the same sex, it should be embraced. When the physicality is your gender, it can be amended. When the physicality is your race (which the song mentions), it must be embraced and accepted. The song is right, you can’t play God; you have to submit to your innate self. The question, however, is how do we know what is innate? Asked differently: “should I ‘play god’ and deny my feeling of same sex attraction?” or “Should I ‘play god’ and have a sex change?” You see, the decision isn’t as easy as “to be myself or not?” No, the issue is “what part of myself will I ‘not be?’”
This brings us to our third area of agreement with the song; our sexuality is accountable to the one, true God.
Whatever God you believe in
We come from the same one
Strip away the fear
Underneath it’s all the same love
The song is not promoting a squishy relativism. It doesn’t say “whatever god you believe in, it doesn’t matter.” Nor does it say, “Whatever god you believe in is true.” No, you may (subjectively) believe in the Muslim god, or the Wiccan god, or the Buddhist god, but actually there is only one (objective) god.
Of course, having a god speak to us is the only way to resolve the tension of what is “innate” and “non-innate” to our humanity. To say something is innate is to say it can exist apart from brokenness and sin. The metal of a ship is innate, the rust is not. Our age is made up of only broken things, so the only way to know what is innate is to know what existed before there was brokenness, and what will exist when the brokenness is taken away. Someone who knows the Alpha and the Omega has to tell us what is innate. Given our “situatedness” in history, we can’t know such things on our own. Our sexuality can’t be “discovered,” it has to be given to us by our Creator.
Well, who is this one, true God? Macklemore claims to know him; indeed, he speaks for him. He lets us know that this god deems race (physical) and sexual preference (metaphysical) as innate; but judges hate (metaphysical) and gender (physical) as non-innate. Macklemore doesn’t think you should put your trust in a book “written 3,000 years ago.” I get that. However, what’s the alternative? Macklemore’s told us that there is only one god, but what’s this god’s name? How did he and Macklemore meet? Macklemore is telling us what is innate and what is extraneous, what is good and what is bad, what is clean and what is unclean, what is holy and what is profane. Are we supposed to take his word for it that this is god’s opinion?
While I agree that there is only one, true God, I think He is Yahweh; the one in whom Abraham put his trust, the one who Moses encountered in a cloud, the one who Paul knew, the one from whom Jesus claimed to be. Not only are other “gods” subject to Him (including Macklemore’s god), but I am subject to him. My sexual orientation, gender, and proclivities are subject to him. You see, we can’t base our sexual identity on the culture’s view of masculinity and femininity, it’s relative and ever fluctuating. We can’t base our sexual identity on our own impulses. How would we know which are innate and which are bad? How would we know which to neglect and which to embrace? No, we have to base our sexual identity and practices on the one, true God. He created our gendered-bodies, and he has a plan for them stretching beyond this short life.
As a straight man, I resonate with Same Love because, in a sexually “open” and “evolving” world, I need a sure and steady word from God just as much as my gay friends do. Macklemore claims to have such a word. In fact, Jesus and Macklemore are making the exact same claim; both claim they know the will of the one, true God. Here is your choice: put your faith in the one who rose from the dead, or put your faith in the one who wrote Thrift Shop.<>
Very well, thought out. Good job.