I know I occasionally use this blog as a soapbox to express (read: gripe) about politics and philosophy and other things, and I know that I owe everyone the rest of my “Best of Tucson” series (I have a camera full of photos for that) but if you’ll bear with me, I want to share this recent article I found in my inbox from a listserv I subscribe to.
Those of you who don’t like it when I put my views on the blog, now is the time for you to close the browser and go shopping.
Homosexuality is a tricky question for me and for many years now I’ve relegated it to my list of “things I refuse to discuss unless I have to” spot, as it didn’t really impact my life and I felt like the less said by me, the better. On top of that, when I came home from Japan 10 years ago, I had gotten used to the sort of 1950′s-era culture of Japan, where everybody pretended things like homosexuality simply didn’t exist. That was fine by me. I wasn’t gay, and I was just trying to get by, learn the language, adapt to the culture, etc., so it became a non-issue.
Then, one day, I had an epiphany when I was talking with a friend, and I realized my best friend from high school was gay. I wrote him a letter, terrified, asking if I was right. I was. His response was hostile, to say the least. We’d been estranged for years, but finding out that he was this whole other person than who I thought he was also kind of pissed me off. I wasn’t just angry at him, I was angry at all gay people (yes, I know this is irrational). When Marti and I started going to a church in Tucson and we found out it was accepting of gays, we left. I simply couldn’t handle it. I had a lot of anger, and seeing openly gay couples at church functions made me feel awkward (where was the judgment? where was the hellfire and damnation?)
Time has a way of working these things out, though. Several years later a teenager I mentored came out, and I during that time realized that, over time, my heart had changed. I wasn’t angry at him; I was proud of him. He was a great kid, a promising, brilliant kid, and I didn’t give a darn that he was gay. Since then, I’ve put a lot of thought into it, and I can see that my heart has grown in compassion instead of anger.
When I ran across this article, it was one of those moments when I realized that someone had spelled out how I feel better than I could, and this made me want to share it. For what it’s worth, my life philosophy at middle age is this: a compassionate response is always better than an angry or judgmental one.
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Implied question: “What does the Bible say about homosexuality?”
“How you answer this question depends hugely on what you take the bible to be. IF you believe that the bible is a single, timeless, internally consistent teaching on matters of human morality dictated by God himself, then yes, the Old Testament book of Leviticus is definitely uncomfortable with homosexuality. But it is also uncomfortable with menstruating women, shellfish and pigskin. (And for the record, it has some very harsh words to say about lending money at interest, a prohibition that even Biblical literalists seem to find it perfectly permissible to disregard!) more »
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