Is America really this homophobic?

Great Debates
121

PREAMBLE: I just got my wisdom teeth removed this morning, so I’m still slightly incoherent.

Congradulations Polycarp, you’ve stumbled on perhaps one of the most progressive and popular current lines of reasoning re: biological development. Predisposition. Some people may be predisposed towards homosexuality and whether a person proceeds down that particular path of development depends on their experiences.

Furthmore, something you still may not have realized, is that almost EVERY human characteristic is a result of a similar genetic/environmental interaction. We do not develop in a vaccuum. Take eye color for example. Now, some people might say that eye color is “100% genetic”. However, it is entirely possible that an environmental challenge/situation may be such that eye color does not develop according to the ‘intended programming’ its just that those environmental circumstances don’t currently exist.

I’m so drugged up right now that none of the above may make any sense, and I probably sound like an idiot. But I felt it was important to get this point across…

(my spelling is probably horrendous as well)

122

akennett:

Well, I’ve never actually met an anti-gay Christian who felt that way; they all seem to accept homosexuality as something that can be turned on or off. Their position is, in a way, more defensible, even if I disagree with it. I would assume these same sorts of people would agree that wearing earrings and getting tattoos and the like are also sins. To them, I would simply ask: “Why would God consider a sin something which harms nobody, including the sinner?” It’s my opinion that certain taboos were added to the Christian doctrine because, at the time, they were harmful. Piercings and tattoos can lead to infections. And the type of intercourse classically practiced by gay men can lead to a wider circulation of diseases. In a time period when certain precautions cannot (or are not typically) taken, it would make sense to pass a uniform ban on behaviors likely to lead to harm, even if the chance of harm is not 100%. If I were God, that’s what I would do. It’s like jaywalking; jaywalking by itself generally doesn’t hurt anyone, but if everyone’s doing it, it could cause problems. Of course nowadays, we can cure infections, we can sterilize piercings, and we understand diseases to the extent that we can more easily engage in anal sex without risk. Thus, if the point of these taboos was to protect us, the taboos are outdated.

So you assert that a gay man can stop having gay urges through force of will? Care to back that up with evidence?

There are many Christians nowadays who fully accept homosexuality. Hell, there’re many gay Christians. That doesn’t seem like an indication of some success to you? I dunno what the gay movement is doing, but something is having an effect.
Jeff

123

The following sentence in the first paragraph of my post above may have been confusing:

The “their” to which I was referring was the people who think that homosexual urges can’t be denied, but should still be ignored. ie, the people that akennett was referring to in his post.
Jeff

124

The “love sinner/hate sin” argument does not have to be and at times is not glib. As explained to me by a person whom I know personally to have shown real compassionate love in a very tough situation for a gay close friend despite his Bible-based beliefs, the idea is that everybody has a wish, a willingness, to do things with short-term benefits but long-term harm to themselves, and the rational man fights such tendencies with what willpower is available to him, and seeks strength from a higher power (i.e., God) to do so. This would be the case with alcoholism, with drug addiction, with a tendency to fly-off-the-handle anger at minimal provocation, etc. On their Bible-based analysis of what is “good” and what “bad” for people, homosexual acts are proscribed, and the gay man is expected to exercise his willpower to abstain. (Most, not realizing the innate nature of sexuality, would expect him to “change” to being straight; a minority grasp that idea and simply urge abstention.)

This is not an argument in favor of that viewpoint – it’s simply amplification on how conservative Christians can honestly and not insultingly consider themselves to hold that view. I know a man addicted to (narrative) pornography who fights the temptation to read it in much the same way as he would expect a gay man to fight the temptation to engage in gay sex – and he’d use “we” rather than “you” about fighting temptation to such a person.)

However, and I cannot stress this enough – it’s been my very strong sense, reading the Bible with a sense of its importance in grasping God’s will but without an inflated concept that it’s the be-all and end-all of how God expresses Himself, that every single commandment relating to sex has been one that says, in effect, “Thou shalt not do this thing that uses another person as a sex object; thou shalt not manipulate them for your own kicks.” Moses, Paul, and Jude had no more idea that two gay men or two gay women could fall in love and establish a happy, committed relationship that is for all practical purposes a marriage, than they did the use of stem cells to combat recalcitrant diseases.

Finally, it needs to be stressed absolutely that what God calls each human being to do is to turn to Him in humility, to repent of his own selfish nature, and to live a life of grace characterized by humility, compassion, and love towards God and all other human beings. That means that the Christian messagefor every straight person is, the commandments to focus on are the two Jesus called the most important – as they are for every gay person too. If you somehow see room in that for explaining in love what you think God meant by those passages in Leviticus and Romans, go for it – but remember that your primary job is to be expressing love and witnessing for Him, not to try to play Holy Spirit in your spare time and convict others of what you think are their sins.

125

Blech. No matter what kind of spin you put on it, it still disgusts me.

Still, I can only go off of what you say and do to my face, so if you’re going to show me love, then until proven otherwise, I’ll assume you love me.

There ya go.

Esprix

126

>Blech. No matter what kind of spin you put on it, it still disgusts me.

Then your posting or reading this thread is useful…how? If you’re not even going to rationally consider each viewpoint (without a “disgusting” label on anything you don’t agree with) there’s little point in reading, is there?

127

athelas, you try going through life with large numbers of people despising you because of nothing more than who you love then come back and tell Esprix that he is not entitled to his visceral reaction of disgust. Try living 30 or so years with a majority of society saying things like “well I love athelas, but I hate everything athelas does.”

I think Esprix demonstrates great tolerance and rationality, given the circumstances.

128

OK, bullshit again. (Must have been a while since we went over all this, hunh? they’re coming outta the woodwork here.)

Listen, athelas; here’s what Esprix has done in the above post:

Step 1: listened to argument.
Step 2: considered argument.
Step 3: disagreed with argument.
Step 4: expressed disagreement.

What makes you think he skipped Step 2? Just because someone disagrees with you doesn’t mean they haven’t considered your viewpoint; it might simply mean that–wait for it–they disagree with your viewpoint.

Consider it.

129

Polycarp, despite your careful delineation of the best case scenario of a sinner-loving sin hater, the concept is bankrupt from the ground up, because it’s based on a false paradigm and a lack of understanding. This is what disturbed me about your previous post. I didn’t take it as a slam, just as a saddening example of good intentions coupled with an ultimately insurmountable prejudice.

“Normal” is such a loaded word in this context that it’s distracting to use it as you’ve used it. You argue for using it as a statistical term: the vast majority of people are hetero-identified, therefore that’s the statistical norm. How about this: it’s statisticaly normal for [~whatever] 3%-10% of a population to be homosexual. Therefore, I’m perfectly normal, even in a statistical sense. Since most people equate “normal” with “natural,” it’s not helpful to use that term in any context within this debate. I’m as natural–and as “normal”–as you or [shudder] akennett or athelas. Either way you look at it, I’m 100% normal, so it was a bad choice of words.

Nonetheless, along with your followup, it was enlightening. I appreciate your considered input into such discussions, but it’s become clear to me that you still speak from a paradigm that is different from mine: that you still see me a “other.” As tolerable, even acceptable, even perhaps–intellectually–as normal. But still as other.

Don’t get me wrong; I consider you an ally. But it makes me wonder if there will always be that final barrier between total understanding.

I work as a volunteer at an LGBTQ youth center, and some of the volunteers are “straight allies.” It’s interesting to see the dawning light in their eyes as the spend time with gay kids–and of course with other volunteers, gay adults–and come more and more to see them as real, whole people. You can see the gradual paradigm shift from “I should help THEM” to “WE’RE all in this together, and WE should all help EACH OTHER.”

I’m all for Christian charity–it was perhaps the most strongly held principal by one of my favorite authors, Flannery O’Connor, and a major theme of her work–but, as illustrated in many O’Connor stories (read “Revelation”) it presents the temptation of Pride to the charitable; i.e., it can emphasize, rather than de-emphasize, the “us/them” divide.

130

Polycarp:

From what I understand, this is one of the primary sources of the tendency for Catholic priests to engage in… er… unsavory relations with underage boys (though not prepubescent boys). Catholicism tells you that if you’re gay, fine, just don’t have gay sex. And hey - if you want to be really safe, just become a priest, since they have to abstain, anyway. So you wind up with a large number of gay priests, with a lot of pent up sexual frustration, surrounded by nubile young lads… not exactly the best way to discourage gay sex with minors.
Jeff

131

See my Big Gay Realization thread

132

Hmmm.

I was kind of looking forward to Polycarp’s response to my last post.

Did I kill this thread, or did P go on vacation or something?

133

Polycarp rarely posts on weekends, in my experience. I seem to recall that he uses public access internet in his town library to get to the Boards.

134

Look, I’m glad Canada is working towards same-sex unions, etc., and I wish the U.S. was as progressive. We are changing but it is slow. This attitude though just smacks of total bullsh-t. As great and wonderful as you believe Canada to be, you cannot tell me that you do not have a chance of being called a “fag” or being discriminated against, or even being the victim of a hate-crime there.

Stop portraying the U.S. as having “No Fags, Blacks, or Jews Allowed” signs outside every town. Could you encounter bigots or homophobes here? Yes. I’m sure that never happens in angelic harmony Canada. :rolleyes:

135

Lissener, there’s a lot of things to be said here, and I do regret not having answered before now. To address them in order:

  1. I know a man who sincerely tries to live out the sinner/sin dichotomy, and who has invested a lot of his emotional self in helping a close friend through the coming-out process despite his own beliefs about whether that’s sinful. I have no doubt that a fair proportion of the LS/HS folks are using it as an excuse for bigotry, but I can introduce you online to an exception. In fairness to the gentleman mentioned above and a few others of his ilk, whose beliefs lead them to try to walk that knife edge, I felt it only fair to point out that “LS/HS=bigotry” is just another stereotype, and there are exceptions.

  2. I wasn’t arguing for “normal” to mean anything in particular for purposes of discussion – my comment was in reference to my own thought processes, in a context dealing with generalizations about the majority and with the exceptions to them. There was a point to it at the time, but I’m sorry it’s caused any kind of divide between us.

  3. You are no doubt right that there will always be a slight divide between us. I’m doing my best to conquer it. I know what it’s like to be ostracized for reasons beyond your control, and ridiculed; it’s happened to me. I know what it’s like to fall in love with another guy; it’s happened to me. It doesn’t take a huge amount of imagination to grasp how one man could find another man sexually attractive; I do my best to grasp that. It’s not at all difficult to be outraged at bigotry, hatred, misrepresentation, and all the remainder of the anti-gay arsenal – there have been a couple of threads where I’ve led the counterattack until Esprix or somebody shows up with more data than I have.

Expect no more than I can give, but expect me to give all that I can. And when I fail to grasp something, please forgive and explain gently.

  1. Your last two paragraphs are an important message to everybody, and not just about gay rights. Nothing will ever result from Us ministering to Them – what works is All of Us working together with each other. Nearly three years ago you skewered a couple of my misconceptions, and I’ve always been grateful.
136

Well, I’m not Alien, but here is my definition of “flaunting it”:

Okay, say you’re walking down the street, going to work, and all of a sudden, you see this guy ahead of you, running towards you, and every person he sees, he JUMPS in front of them, and screams, “Did you know I’m GAY!!!” “Hey, I’m GAY!!!” “Dude, I’m GAY!!!” Just to every random stranger.

THAT would be flaunting it.
It would also be funnier than all get out.

137

You just described my typical day at work.

( :wink: )

No, I rather get the impression that if we should ever dare, say, oh, I don’t know, show some kind of affection for our lover - perhaps hold hands (shocking!) - then of course we deserve to get the crap beaten out of us. How dare we flaunt it! Sickos, each and every one of us.

Esprix

138

You have a valid point MeanJoe. I likely do hold an overly rosy picture of my own country and perhaps I have not given Americans enough credit. There are good and bad people everywhere you go. I have no delusions that Canada is free of discrimination… however, I am simply trying to determine whether the differences between our two countries in terms of the general attitudes of the populace outweigh the many potential benefits of becoming a resident of your fine country. Many posters have been very helpful.

139

akennett has implied that just because I find the LS/HS tenet as personally offensive with respect to my sexuality, does not mean that it is necessarily offensive. Just because I feel these people hate me, does not mean that they actually do.

This has led me to an interesting question. What is more important: intentions or consequences? Is it simply enough for people like akennett to say that they do not hate ME and do not mean offense to ME as a person, and furthermore, that they can’t help that I don’t see the difference between my homosexual acts and who you are as a person? Or does the fact that I can not see how this distinction is valid and that I can not help but take personal offense when someone claims the LS/HS ‘defense’ have any bearing on whether someone should practice this philosophy?

Any thoughts?

140

bo, you might want to check out that “Love the Christian, Hate Christianity” thread as well.

Esprix