The photographer had already sent the contract. God, apparently, had not yet had a chance to look it over.
I came across a post on social media about a lesbian couple whose photographer agreed to take their pictures, then reconsidered the following morning. According to the message they shared, he had taken some time to pray and discuss it with his family. He apologized for the “mixed signals.” The problem was neither the date nor the logistics nor the scope of the work. It concerned “his relationship with God” and what he felt he could participate in.
He had genuinely thought he was comfortable, he explained. After reflection, he discovered that he wasn’t. He regretted not reaching this clarity sooner. They seemed like kind people. He wished them the best.
Two women wanted photographs. They received an account of a man’s spiritual development.
What bothers me most is the extraordinary care taken to make the refusal sound generous. Every sentence attends to his intentions, his discomfort, his conscience, his difficult process of arriving at an answer. The couple appear chiefly as the unfortunate recipients of his personal growth. He has found clarity. They can find another photographer.
“Mixed signals” is an especially delicate description of agreeing to work with someone before deciding that their relationship presents a problem for your soul. It makes the injury sound administrative. An unfortunate misunderstanding between the scheduling department and heaven.
And “you seem like kind people” is hardly the kindness he appears to imagine. He has recognized their decency and proceeded anyway. Whatever he sees in their actual character is insufficient to overcome what he has decided their love means.
There is something profoundly ugly about making people feel unacceptable and then expecting the gentleness of your language to count as evidence of your goodness.
The appeal to Christianity deserves scrutiny, especially from anyone who takes Christianity seriously.
In Matthew 23:23, Jesus rebukes religious authorities for attending meticulously to small observances while neglecting justice, mercy, and faithfulness. The criticism concerns the ability to perform religious correctness while failing at the obligations that give it meaning. It is an uncomfortable passage for anyone whose conscience becomes exquisitely sensitive to two women standing together for a photograph.
Matthew 6 warns against performing righteousness for an audience, against accumulating earthly treasure, and against trying to serve both God and wealth. There is enough material in that chapter to make a person examine his own ambitions for quite some time before moving on to a stranger’s relationship.
James 2 condemns preferential treatment of the wealthy and questions the value of sending someone away with good wishes while leaving their needs unmet. Its circumstances concern poverty, but the moral challenge travels: what are your benevolent words worth to the person receiving them? “Mercy triumphs over judgment,” the chapter says. An interesting sentence to sit with before sending the cancellation.
These passages make me impatient with a religious education that seems to produce such confidence about whom to exclude and so little unease about the exclusion itself.
I cannot know how much of the Bible this photographer has read. But young Christians deserve better than inheriting a handful of conclusions and being encouraged to mistake familiarity for understanding. Knowing which verses your community invokes against gay people is a very small part of knowing the book. A serious reading also requires encountering the passages that disturb your comfort, implicate your conduct, and make demands on something you would prefer to keep.
There is a convenient form of conviction in which someone else is always asked to make the sacrifice.
Reading the whole Bible would not make every Christian agree about sexuality. There are passages traditionally read as condemnations of same-sex acts, and their interpretation remains contested. That disagreement is real. So is the existence of Christians who have studied, prayed, and reached an affirming position. The Episcopal Church changed its marriage canons in 2015 to permit same-sex couples to marry. These believers also have a relationship with God. They also did the reading.
The photographer’s decision therefore belongs to him. Invoking God cannot relieve him of responsibility for the interpretation he chooses or the treatment that follows.
He may sincerely believe he has done the right thing. Sincerity does not settle the question. People can be deeply sincere while causing harm, and prayer does not confer immunity from criticism. I would like to know whether, during all that reflection, he considered that his discomfort might be something to examine rather than something two women were obliged to accommodate.
They were asking him to use a camera. Their relationship existed before his approval and continues without it. Yet his response makes their ordinary wish to be photographed together into a test of his religious integrity.
That is the indignity. Having to discover, in the middle of arranging something happy, that another person considers your happiness a moral hazard.
And then being wished the best.
I keep returning to his claim that he could not proceed in good conscience. I wonder why his conscience had so much to say about taking the photographs and so little to say about the message he was about to send.
He took time to pray. He spoke with his family. He sat with his feelings.
Perhaps he should have spent a little longer considering theirs.
