Hello all!
This started out to be a facebook status post, but after I started typing I realized that perhaps my blog, which I haven't written on in some time, would give me more room to express my thoughts on this particular topic.
My husband and I took our eleven year old daughter to the library today, and while browsing the 'new arrivals' section, I came across a book by a man named Paul Vitagliano called "Born This Way, Real Stories of Growing Up Gay." I was intrigued, and decided to pick it up and bring it home.
I just finished reading the book "Red Letter Christians" by Tony Campolo (A book I highly recommend, by the way) and gay rights issues were addressed in that book and very much in the forefront of my mind, as they are in the media these days and in the lead up to the presidential election to take place only next month.
Born This Way was fascinating to me. It included snapshots of gay individuals as children, from the ages of 1 or 2 to as old as 13-15. Included with the snapshots were very short stories, sometimes only a collection of a few sentences or even just one sentence, that summed up for the person in the photograph what it had been like to 'grow up gay'. The stories were laid out in chronological order, spanning decades from the 1950's all the way to the 2000's. It included people we know now as celebrities, as well as regular, every day folks. There were both gay men, and lesbian women.
Some of the stories were heartwarming, others heartbreaking. Some had supportive and loving families who accepted them no matter what their orientation, and others spoke of being 'disowned' by their relatives, or having their gayness simply 'swept under the rug' and not talked about, as if not talking about it made it untrue.
One of the phrases I found most interesting in the book, was when these folks talked about "coming out to themselves" before coming out to friends and family. Admitting to themselves that they were gay, that they were different than most people, was often just as much if not more of a struggle than telling their loved ones, who almost always suspected or knew before the person came out to them.
So one gets to thinking about what kind of society we live in, where someone has to be afraid to admit, even to themselves, that they are gay.
I'm as straight as it gets, perfectly in love with my husband. I'm also a Christian, and very involved in my church. For most of my life, I never thought about gay rights, or even really knew any gay people. I just didn't live in a place where I came into contact with it. As I got older, and I started learning a little more about the world, I don't ever remember feeling anything negative about gay people, even once I became a Christian and starting attending church regularly. And I went to a baptist church where homosexuality is considered a terrible sin. I remember thinking, when I would hear people condemn it, "What is so bad about loving, and wanting to be loved, even by someone of the same gender?"
I've heard the arguments for why the bible says its wrong. And we all pick and choose which parts of the bible we ascribe to, (I don't wear robes and braid my hair after all) and the thing that I keep coming back to is that Jesus told us the greatest commandment was to Love. Love your enemies, show mercy. All of us are God's children, and should be treated as brothers and sisters. Jesus loved everyone the same, and we should too. I've always been a 'love everybody' kind of person, and try to always find the good in people.
My husband and I had a great discussion about what makes someone gay, and he asked me what a good argument would be against someone who tried to classify being gay as a mental illness. My own argument would be that mental illness is, to me, defined as something that harms either the individual, or others around them or both. Gayness doesn't harm anyone.
The human brain and systems are far more complex that any of us could ever begin to understand. The sheer number of people who identify as gay, for me, makes it seem that it is a born trait no different than having naturally curly hair or being left handed. It's simply a genetic reality, not a disorder and certainly not a choice. Genetics are responsible for so many different combinations of how we operate as human beings. Does it not then make sense to assume that being gay is simply another one of those genetic traits that occur?
I had the wonderful privilege of getting to work for a few months with a young man who is gay and out and proud of it. I'll never forget the day he and I discussed 'levels of gayness' and he said on a scale of one meaning you are a 'little gay' and 10 your 'pooping rainbows' he's about a 15 :) He is a great young man and to my mind very brave to come and live and work in an area that is very religiously and socially conservative and just be who he is. He is a sweetheart and if he reads this I just want to say "Nick, thank you for being a small part of my life and I admire you more than you know." (I also miss chatting about fashion and project runway with you!!)
So I guess my point to all this is that gay people are just...people. No different than you or me and who should be afforded the sames rights we all enjoy by virtue of being heterosexual. Do I think that churches who don't agree should be forced to accept gay marriage? No, we do have freedom of religion in this country and if they want to be intolerant then fine, though I will try to persuade them with just arguments. But if we are supposed to have separation of church and state in this country, then I say that conservative church views on homosexuality should stay out of whether they are granted the ability to marry and enjoy things that I get to enjoy as a married person. I don't ever have to worry about someone denying me access to my husband if he's in hospital, or denying me coverage on his health insurance policy, or deny allowing us to adopt a child, simply because we're straight. Gay people should have those same rights.
So think about those things, when you go to vote in a few weeks. Think about what the candidates views are on these issues. Even if you disagree with me, go out and voice it by voting, and not standing silent.
And to anyone out there who is gay, or who may be struggling with coming out as gay, I love you, and Jesus loves you, just as you are. Be who you are, and lets work together to teach our fellow man some tolerance and hope that in our grandchildren's day this gay rights argument will just be another entry in a history book, like the civil rights movement of the 1960's.
Thanks,
Dawn
