Guin, I don’t recall specifically saying that I hoped his daughter isn’t gay. But I will now: I hope his daughter isn’t gay. Because this “good Christian” would not treat her the way she deserves to be treated. He’d torment her, and probably hand her over the reparative torture chambers.
Never count on a person’s capacity to change. It doesn’t exist in most people.
And who is this His4ever person? I’ve heard of her (?) a million times, but never seen a post.
His4ever-do a search of a poster named Lynn73. It’s impossible for me to describe her without doing a complete hijack.
And I’m saying you don’t know that. You don’t know HOW he’d react. It isn’t a case of disowning and torturing her, or completely changing his views.
(Ask ANYONE on here who is gay and came out to his or her parents-I’ve seen a variety of responses, ranging from the horrid to the wonderful.)
In all honesty, we don’t know WHAT he’d do. Anything we say is mere speculation. Why don’t we ASK him what he would do?
Here, I will: bodswood-what would you do if your daughter comes to you some day, and tells you that she’s a lesbian? How would you react?
That’s a pretty cynical worldview, especially for someone so young (you’re in your early 20s, right?). But I understand, with your history of pain, why you might think that. But Guin is right: we just don’t know how people might evolve in the future. People can change in the most surprising way. It’s not good to always assume they won’t change in a positive way (not that it’s necessarily good to assume that they will, either!). People sometimes rise beyond our expectations.
As far the sexual preference of bodswood’s daughter, I only hope that she is happy and that bodswood deals with whatever conflicts that come his way in the best way possible. I certainly don’t wish that she’ll be this or that, just to teach him a lesson.
He’s already answered this by saying he would be “devastated.” That’s all he’s said, and I’d like to hope that that’s enough. bodswood’s family didn’t ask to be part of this discussion; only he did.
I’m not trying to chastise anyone, just to point out that one of the most objectionable parts of this whole “debate” is having your personal life thrust out for everyone else to judge and examine. That’s the part that’s unfair, and the part that I wouldn’t wish on anyone else.
Well, I honestly don’t know what to tell you, then, bodswood. Who are you going to believe? I hate to pull the homo card here, but I think I’m a little more qualified to speak on the topic than someone who’s reading Bible verses and ascribing motives to another person. I’ve told my story on here, repeatedly, for anyone who chooses to hear it.
I’m sorry that you have difficulties with the whole thing, but you know, I kinda had difficulties with it, too. In the form of years and years of unnecessary self-loathing, blame, loneliness, and depression.
If I take the time and energy to put my personal experiences out there, and you choose to dismiss them as invalid because it doesn’t fit in with your idea of how your faith works, then I don’t have anything more to say to you. If the issue of homosexuality is so important to your faith, if your faith is so dependent on believing that I’m wrong, then nothing I say will ever change that.
It depends. Does he pervert the idea of Christian love so as to subject people to needless and horrific “therapy” in order to fit with a society’s misplaced moral standard? Does he see the safe, consensual, monogamous love between two adults as “wrong” and a perversion? Would he deny the rights of two adults in love to marry or have children, simply because of whom they love?
If so, then yes, he is all bad.
Not quite a fair comparison. The Jewish law is specific to the Jewish people; it doesn’t apply to Gentiles, who are only expected to follow the considerably less-stringent Noachide laws. Orthodox Jews have no reason to have trouble with non-Jews’ eating of pork.
And according to bodswood, you chose that. You didn’t want to be gay, you chose it. How does he make this make sense inside his own head? Does he believe he could choose to turn gay? If he couldn’t, are only some people equipped with the inclination and ability to turn gay? If so, isn’t this exactly the same thing as homosexuality not being a choice?
Yes, and Christians have no reason to have trouble with the sexual orientation of non-Christians. That’s exactly my point. (I cannot speak for gay Christians, since I am not one).
Homebrew, I support the right of you and your ex to bring up your own kid(s). Sorry not to make that clear earlier.
It was me who mentioned my daughter, so I’m not at all bothered about her being discussed. Anyway, according to the views of the majority here, who believe an individual is born homosexual, the matter has already been decided. It will presumably become known to her (if it is not already) at puberty, and then she will be faced with the choice of coming out or not.
Re the adoption issue, I actually wonder whether you (or I) would change our minds whatever research studies showed. Are you really saying that you would accept that homosexual adoption should not take place if reputable studies indicated that it was not in the best interests of children?
So you accept that I am fit to be a parent. Doesn’t that wreck your arguement against adoption?
It would depend on how “not in the best interests of children” was defined. Based on your earlier comments, I’d guess we’d disagree on what that means.
I most certainly would. There are many people who - through no fault of their own - are unfit parents, and I oppose their right to adopt. If research were to show that adoption by homosexuals wasn’t in the best interest of the child, I’d oppose that too. I’m pretty confident such research will never show up, though.
If I’m being honest, I have to acknowledge that I did choose the self-loathing, shame, and blame. I chose to ignore all the examples of homosexuals with successful lives and healthy relationships, and instead chose to judge the ones whose world view didn’t match my own. I chose to believe that all gay people identify themselves solely around their homosexuality. I chose to believe that all the things I knew in my heart to be true about loving someone, doing the right thing, and treating someone with respect, were less important than what I had been taught about gays being weak-willed and sinful.
Now I choose to acknowledge that there’s nothing I know about living a good and spiritual life that is incompatible with my being a homosexual. I just hope that when I get to heaven, St Peter is checking off the names instead of St Paul.
But to get off the soapbox and answer your question: well, I can’t, really. I imagine that asking them whether they can “turn gay” is irrelevant; why would they need to? I have to be charitable and assume that they believe that every human being is capable of being sexually attracted to the opposite sex. That if I just supressed my base urges and found the right woman, I could develop a “normal” relationship. Part of me wants to explain that I’ve tried that, many, many times, and that the attraction just isn’t there. But most of me feels that that’s my own business and I’m sick of constantly having to explain and justify myself.
One thing that has always confused me about the whole “choosing to be gay” theory is that, without a desire or attraction to the same sex, why WOULD anyone choose to be gay?
Think about it-if we’re hard-wired to be heterosexual (just for the sake of discussion), then, why wouldn’t we want to BE, well, heterosexual? Why would you choose something you have no desire for?
So the DESIRE has to be there-it CANNOT be something that one chooses-because attractions and desires do NOT work that way at all. If that were the case, hell, no one would fall in love with someone unsuitable.
So it makes no sense.
Some of the “theories” I’ve heard:
Sexual abuse as a child convinces the child that it’s “okay.” I’m totally unqualified to speak about this one, so I can only say that it is possible to turn out gay with no history of sexual abuse whatsoever.
Orientation is completely socialized. The lack of a proper same-sex role model causes a child to identify most closely with the opposite sex, which results in same-sex attraction. Don’t know what to say to that. There are plenty of gay men who aren’t particularly effeminate, and lesbians who aren’t particularly masculine. And the same can be said of a majority of heterosexuals.
Lack of proper non-sexual relationships with people of the same sex. Again, can’t speak for everyone, but not true in my case. I’ve always had more guy friends than girl friends.
Inability to have mature romantic relationships with members of the opposite sex. The cause and effect is messed up here. I think the claim is that you get frustrated at your inability to find a girlfriend (if you’re a man), so you resort to finding a boyfriend. That ignores the fact that my inability to find a girlfriend was because I knew it was never going to go anywhere because there was no attraction in the first place.
Breaking taboos, or the idea that that which is forbidden is tempting. I really don’t know how to answer this one. I pretty much knew on some level that I was gay even before I knew what sex was. And it doesn’t account for all the homosexual relationships that end up being asexual. Still, there are plenty of homosexuals who will tell you that “we don’t play by their rules anymore,” so I don’t know where’ they’re coming from.
Too much sex drive causes gay men to be indiscriminate in their attraction. Sadly, no.
The devil tempts men to be gay and only the strong ones can resist the temptation and live moral and just lives. Then the devil’s doing a pretty lousy job. If I’m giving in to temptation, I should be getting a lot more action than I am now.
At what age did you have first have this knowledge? And how did it manifest itself? For example, did you find yourself attracted to or wanting to caress a classmate?
Do the majority of homosexuals you know have similar childhood knowledge?
Plenty of heterosexuals have similar childhood knowledge.
(Had my first crush at the age of seven, on a classmate. I sometimes wonder what would have happened if I hadn’t moved away; I tried to keep in touch with him, but life didn’t work out that way. I did beat him in a wrestling match, once; an age appropriate-way of making physical contact that didn’t involve pulling his hair.)
[QUOTE=SolGrundy]
Orientation is completely socialized. The lack of a proper same-sex role model causes a child to identify most closely with the opposite sex, which results in same-sex attraction. Don’t know what to say to that.
Parents have a key role to play in a child’s upbringing. A particular form of this theory runs: “Homeosexuals are not born that way. They are made that way, largely by their parents”. That has always seemed plausible to me.
One of my gay friends says he knew when he was four.
This gels with my experience, as a heterosexual. Starting at about age four, I didn’t “know” on any sophisticated level, all I knew was that Adam from Bonanza was the coolest thing ever. I never had that kind of reaction to a female. Only males. I was very, very young, and yet I knew.
Bodswood, whether or not the kids are “made that way” by their parents, or are just that way, I don’t know. I freely admit that it is a mystery to me. I have trouble believing, as a Christian, that God would make an innocent child something so wrong, if indeed God had deemed it a grave sin. It is a mystery to me. I truly just do not know what to make of it all, though the words of good Christians like Polycarp help me feel more at ease about the whole situation. I am waiting for the next life to understand the answer to this mystery. I truly am.
All I know is that I sure as hell am not going to treat gay people like shit. I want them to have equal rights under the current secular law, because that is only fair, and as a Christian, I support fair treatment for all citizens.
I know that God loves gay people, because He says he loves everyone. I know that He wants them—like everyone else on Earth—to be happy.
I think that the best thing to do (this is just my opinion) is to pray that everybody, including gay people, to be happy, in the way that God wants them to be happy. It’s not in your hands. It is in God’s hands. No matter what you believe, I am certain that you would agree that praying that these people do what God wants them to do is not a bad idea, and that such a prayer would not go against your beliefs.
You don’t have to believe that homosexuality is good. I personally don’t give a rat’s ass whether you do or don’t. (Though it’s easy for me to not care, since I am not gay and it’s not as personal an issue for me.) But if you can look into your heart and pray for God to guide you to always be fair, and to treat these people as individuals that God loves, to treat them in the manner that God wants you to treat them, and always wish them to be happy in the manner that God wants them to be happy, then I think you would be doing a wonderful, wonderful thing.
I had a mini-epiphany the other day on this subject. See, I’ve watched several people in my life move from being apparently straight to apparently gay and back again to apparently straight (or vice versa). And when they were one or the other, they were very much that way, no question about it: it’s not like they were bisexual and just happened to be with men that week.
It’s always made me doubt the theory that everyone’s sexuality is genetically determined: surely their genes weren’t changing around.
But This American Life did a story this week about a woman who realized she was lesbian when she was a late teenager, and came out to her family about it, and worked on a GLBT newspaper for a few years, and did the whole dyke thing, and only hung out with gay men and lesbians, and was pretty much completely lesbian except that she never actually got around to sleeping with women. Eventually a gay male friend gave her a casual backrub, and from her physical reaction to his touch she realized that she really wasn’t a lesbian, and so she had to come out all over again to everyone.
What this made me realize is this: people don’t choose their sexuality, but they can choose how they make sense of it. And they can choose the subculture they fall into.
Someone who’s attracted to men and women may find it easiest to consider themselves gay, or to consider themselves straight, because either of these categories at least have firm cultures attached to them. They’re not pretending to be gay/straight: they may genuinely convince themselves that they’re attracted only to one sex.
The fact that folks can choose their subculture–that the woman on the radio story could choose to self-identify as lesbian even though she wasn’t actually attracted to women–might be terribly confusing to folks who never consciously made such a choice. It might deceive homophobes into thinking that people can choose to be gay–and I think it might trick some gay people into thinking that people are just being poseurs. (The latter is of course not nearly as dangerous).
This is all supposition on my part, though: it’s just a way that I’m trying to make sense of the experiences of the folks I’ve known whose sexuality has drifted back and forth.
Daniel