Today in the USA is “The Day of Truth“. You’ll see the little advert on the right-hand side of the page. Essentially, the idea of the Day of Truth is to follow the “Day of Silence” (a day when students in US schools go around saying nothing as a protest against homophobia – quite valid a thing to do in some places I think) with a day where “the truth” is shared. The truth of course in this case being the “real” truth behind homosexuality, that it’s not a fixed thing, that people can change their orientation and move from gay to straight.
I’m broadly in agreement with that viewpoint. I do think that sexual orientation isn’t a fixed thing, that one’s sexual and emotional life isn’t dictated by genes, chromosomes or biology or even one’s current affections. But the canny amongst you will have noticed that unlike Exodus and it’s ilk I describe myself as post-gay and not ex-gay. Why is that?
I think the main problem with ex-gay is that it is an ontological statement. It presents, intentionally or not, the one who calls himself as ex-gay as one who’s sexual orientation has changed from gay to straight. He/she is claiming to have gone from one state of being (gay) to another (straight). And while that is the case for many who are ex-gay, for others it isn’t so clear. For some their sexual desires move more towards those of the opposite sex but not to a point where they are exclusively heterosexual in their attractions. That then raises more questions of an ontological nature – are they really “bisexual” (though one wants to ask where the bisexual/heterosexual continuum switches – 95% hetero, 96%, 98.64738%?) and not gay? Are they therefore lying?
I think “ex-gay” also presents a pastoral issue for some who undertake that journey. If the ex-gay ministries promise change to heterosexuality and that change doesn’t occur, does that mean that the ex-gay model is fallacious? While there is a pretty impressive “success rate” for those who go through ex-gay ministries, there is also an equally large number of people who drop-out or reject it. While some of that drop-out is embittered and angered other parts of it are intelligent and articulate and raise a number of important issues that need to addressed.
So this is my problem with “ex-gay”. It seems to suggest a bi-polar, ontological model of sexual attraction – gay to straight. In doing so it unfortunately sets itself up for a fall with those for whose experience that bi-polar model doesn’t seem to fit. So what is the alternative model for those of us who want to affirm the redemption of same-sex attraction and broken sexuality?
The alternative is “post-gay”. Post-gay isn’t an ontological statement, it’s a vectorial statement. For those uninitiated in the deeper arcane magicks of mathematics, a vector is simply a description of a direction and magnitude. It describes a movement, not a position (which is ontology). Post-gay then is less about being straight or gay and rather about a choice of a journey.
Perhaps a personal example to clarify. I’m post-gay because I chose to leave “gay” behind. I chose to no longer accept “gay” as an explanation of who I was and instead to begin a journey away from it. I chose to do so because I was convinced from the Scriptures that “gay” wasn’t a suitable way to describe myself, that it wasn’t a valid way for a Christian to establish identity. I was compelled not just by reading the normal passages on the subject but also from the story in John 8:1-11 of the woman caught in adultery. In particular Jesus’ last words to her are “Go now and leave your life of sin”.
He doesn’t magically transform the women from a harlot to a saint (and contrary to common belief, there’s nothing to associate this woman with Mary Magdalene) but rather simply gives her an instruction of direction – leave this place you’re at (adultery) and move on from it. His command is vectorial, not ontological. It is the call of discipleship – it says “follow me to wherever I take you – I don’t promise you riches or immediate perfection, but I do promise you hope”.
This is why post-gay is a far better description for those who have left homosexuality behind. It describes a journey away from a false identity constructed around one’s emotions and a true one constructed in following Jesus. For some of us that journey involves changes in our sexual orientation, perhaps marriage and kids. For others they see no change in their sexual attractions, but they have left behind the place of false-identity, of seeing themselves as “gay” and that as a defining a unchangeable aspect of their being.
Some aspects of that journey have been clearly marked for us. A dispassionate reading of the Scriptures shows very clearly that God didn’t intend for us to have sex outside of the marriage of male and female. So I could see very clearly that that life option (same-sex activity) and those things that celebrated it (”gay”) were not the direction God wanted me to take. But other parts of the journey only become apparent as we set out to walk the road God has called us onto.
What’s interesting in my case is that I only walked the first of those two possibilities above (change and celibacy) after having reconciled myself to the second. I remember on my post-gay journey reaching a point where I was seeing no change in my attractions and was getting angry with God about it. Wasn’t this ex-gay choice meant to work? Shouldn’t God be doing something about it? God challenged me over the course of a few days with a clear message – “If I want you to stay like this for my purposes, why can’t I do that? Will you follow me wherever I take you, not just only to the places you want to go?” That night I surrendered my sexuality and future to God, reconciled to a life of celibacy but not a life of “gay”. It was only in the surrender to God’s path for me that I then later saw him taking me on the journey to where I am now happily married.
Now the one challenge you might still make to me from an ontological perspective is whether I still have same-sex attraction. Am I 100% heterosexual or not? But as if that matters on the journey. The idea of gay/bisexual/straight is an attempt to ontologically categorise men and women and normally continues into trying to define morality as dependent on ontology. It sees “homosexual” as a statement of one’s being and therefore prescriptive of the “normative” behaviour that derives from that being. Post-gay rejects that way of thinking about sexuality.
A friend of mine is an alcoholic. He hasn’t touched a drop of alcohol in over 20 years, he runs a successful rehab centre, but he would still freely call himself an alcoholic when each week he attends his 12 steps meeting. Why? He knows that he could always return to drinking alcohol to solve emotional and relational issues in his life – it worked in the past and it could work again. In the same way, I’m happy to be described as a homosexual. I know that when I’m down or tired or feeling inadequate I could seek catharsis in the embrace of somebody of the same sex in an attempt to shore my own masculinity. But I’ve also, like my friend who realises that he’s an alcoholic, discovered that that behaviour is counter-productive in the long run because it is simply catharsis and not actually redemptive.
So post-gay is quite happy to admit to a myriad of sexual attractions, but it refuses to be defined by them, not least because the Bible never refers to men and women as homosexual or heterosexual. Rather it is defined by a direction, a journey, a path towards God and his will for our lives.
On the way back from a wedding on Saturday evening I was listening with my wife to Judge Jules on Radio One and a fantastic remix of a Jimmy Somerville / Bronski Beat track was played – You and Me by Blue Ray. Absolutely loved it and the words are still as powerful as they were over 20 years ago. “You and me together, fighting for our love”. While that might in the past have been a call for gay pride, now for me it’s a rallying cry for my post-gay journey and the journey of others. We want to love in the way, reading Scripture and listening to Him, we understand God made us to. We’ll step out on the journey away from polar definitions of sexual identity, whether gay or straight, and instead we’ll simply go where God calls us, trusting for now what’s he already given as sign-posts and waiting upon him for the rest. Our mark of success will not be defined by reaching a certain goal (”straight” or whatever) but rather by still being on the right road, despite whatever comes at us before Glory.
As usual, these are just splattered thoughts and I appreciate yours. Click play below, listen to Blue Ray and then add your comments below.
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Tags: Advert, Affections, Biology, Continuum, Day Of Silence, Day Of Truth, Emotional Life, Exodus, Gay Ministries, Gay Model, Genes Chromosomes, Homosexuality, Ilk, Impressive Success, Real Truth, Saying Nothing, Sexual Desires, Sexual Orientation, Success Rate, Viewpoint
Peter – I just wanted to comment on a statement you made earlier:
You can continue to insist that the New Testament writers didn’t understand homosexuality, but such a view is an utterly destructive view of Scripture, for the New Testament writers were inspired by God. When you claim that Paul was ignorant what you are actually claiming is that we have a completely stupid and incompetent God who wasn’t capable of looking forward 2000 years in the future when modern enlightened people would finally have “worked it out” as regards sexuality.
If this is the case, how do you reconcile this statement with the fact that Paul clearly does not in any way condemn slavery. In fact, he (repeatedly) tells slaves to obey their masters.
He also does not tell Masters to free their slaves – there is no indication in either the OT or NT that slavery is fundamentally unacceptable to God.
So – do we have a ’stupid and incompetent God’? Or do we have a God who was speaking through people in a give cultural context, addressing that given cultural context in ways that were relevant to the people at the time?
God isn’t ’stupid and incompetent’ at all. He gives us the over-arching principle by which to order our lives and make decisions about the proper course of action in our own cultural context (which obviously differs from that of the 1st century!):
Romans 13: 9-10
The commandments, “Do not commit adultery,” “Do not murder,” “Do not steal,” “Do not covet,” and whatever other commandment there may be, are summed up in this one rule: “Love your neighbor as yourself.”Love does no harm to its neighbour. Therefore love is the fulfilment of the law.
Love does no harm to its neighbour. That’s a pretty clear – and radically divine! – understanding of the new law Jesus established.
We can see in this new law that slavery is completely and utterly incompatible with God’s love and ‘doing no harm’ (while at the same time understanding that Paul could in no way start advocating the overthrow of slavery without bringing down the wrath of the Roman empire on the fledgling religion).
In the same way, we can see that God’s new law is also incompatible with the marginalisation and exclusion of gay and lesbian individuals – with refusing them the family and sense of belonging that heterosexuals are encouraged to find. While at the same time understanding that the homosexuality Paul knew about in his day (based on pederasty, abuses of power and always with a wronged wife in the background) was also incompatible with God’s law of love – so of course it was condemned.
But what Paul (and God) clearly condemn in the Bible has no relationship at all with committed, loving, supportive homosexual relationships.
[Reply]
Peter Ould
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May 27th, 2009 at 1:49 pm
I think you’ll find that Paul is very much for freeing slaves – Philemon 12-18 might give you a little clue towards that. In fact, you’ll find that whenever Paul addresses Christian owners of slaves, he takes a similar view. Of course, that doesn’t stop him telling all of us to live in humility, and that includes slaves whose masters have no intention of freeing them.
[Reply]
Carolyn
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May 27th, 2009 at 7:28 pm
That’s reaching. On the basis of that passage, Paul appears to prefer that ownership be transfered from Philemon’s owner to Paul. Nothing about freeing slaves or slavery being bad there.
Paul always (in keeping with Jesus’ commands to love others) admonishes slave owners to treat their slaves kindly.
But even with Christian slave owners, he doesn’t ever suggest that they actually free their slaves (which one would expect, if God was inspiring Paul in such a way that Paul’s words could be read literally, and without reference to cultural context/cultural knowledge by every succeeding generation).
Slave owners in the American South used verses dealing with slavery from the Bible to support their position.
It was the abolitionists (surprise, surprise) who argued from the governing principle of God’s love.
[Reply]
William
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May 27th, 2009 at 8:50 pm
I think that we also need to face the fact that for centuries the Church declined to declare that slavery was evil, so obviously the Bible can’t be too clear on the matter.
St Augustine wrote that the state of slavery was justly imposed on sinners as a penalty for their own benefit.
St Thomas Aquinas acknowledged that slavery was contrary to the first intention of nature in the state of original innocence, but said that it was in conformity with the second intention of nature corrupted by sin.
Catholics who wrote suggesting that slavery was intrinsically wrong usually saw their writings placed on the Index Librorum Prohibitorum, and it was not until 1965 that the Roman Catholic Church at Vatican II officially condemned slavery.
During those centuries Protestants who regarded slavery as a legitimate institution declared that the Bible supported them. Needless to say, they cited St Paul’s epistles and St Peter’s first epistle in justification of their position. The Protestants who opposed slavery were regarded as the innovators.
It was in 1995 that the Southern Baptist Convention formally apologised for its support of slavery, and it was in 2006 that the Church of England formally apologised for the part that it had played in the slave trade.
[Reply]
Peter Ould
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May 28th, 2009 at 7:26 am
I think there’s another reason William:
The matter is quite simple. The Bible is very easy to understand. But we Christians are a bunch of scheming swindlers. We pretend to be unable to understand it because we know very well that the minute we understand we are obliged to act accordingly. Take any words in the New Testament and forget everything except pledging yourself to act accordingly. My God, you will say, if I do that my whole life will be ruined. How would I ever get on in the world?
Herein lies the real place of Christian scholarship. Christian scholarship is the Church’s prodigious invention to defend it-self against the Bible, to ensure that we can continue to be good Christians without the Bible coming too close. Oh, priceless scholarship, what would we do without you? Dreadful it is to fall into the hands of the living God. Yes, it is even dreadful to be alone with the New Testament.
Kierkegaard, “Provocations”
[Reply]
Sue
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May 28th, 2009 at 11:39 am
But if slaves and slaveowners had taken the words, “slaves obey your masters” and said , “the matter is simple, the bible is very easy to understand…take any words in the New Testament and forget everything except pledging yourself to act accordingly” – then – er- we would still have slavery..
Peter , forgive me, but how is your above post in any way a rational or reasoned response to the points raised by Carolyn or William?
[Reply]
Sue
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May 28th, 2009 at 1:54 pm
…and in fact, the above post is actually an attempt to avoid answering and engaging with the issues in your own right. As I’ve suggested above, it could as easily be used to support slavery as it could to condemn same sex unions, so, when applied to the specific issies discussed, it gets us no further.
Peter, why can’t you admit that, when it comes to the issues of divorce and slavery, you are prepared to interpret scripture in context and in the light of ideas about what is just and compassionate. When it comes to homosexual relationships, you apply a very narrow interpretation and insist it is the only valid one?
[Reply]
Peter Ould
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May 28th, 2009 at 2:51 pm
Not at all.
I’m not proposing that we create an entire theology of slavery based around one verse in Ephesians 5 (and neither am I proposing the same for 1 Corinthians 6 for sexuality). It’s more than abundantly clear that in Philemon, Paul tells Philemon in no uncertain terms that he should treat Onesimus as a free man. You can’t read it that way and then read Eph 5 as a argument for slavery – that would be contradictory. You can however read Eph 5 as an argument in favour of being Christlike in your position of servitude, and that then harmonises with Philemon.
The same goes with my approach to same-sex activity. I read all the Bible passages that address it and I come to a considered theology that doesn’t abuse any of them (unlike the revisionist perspective which has to either ignore passages or introduce extra-Biblical material to support its corner).
[Reply]
Sue
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May 28th, 2009 at 3:40 pm
Well, I’m suggesting that we should not create an entire theology of condemnation of committed, loving same sex relationships when there is not one verse of scripture that condemns homosexual activity as an expression of such loving commitment.
By the way, the verse in Ephesians may only be “one verse” but, if you take scripture as seriously as you claim to, then surely one verse should be as binding as two, or thre or four?
[Reply]
Peter Ould
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May 28th, 2009 at 3:47 pm
Come on Sue, there is not one single Bible verse that even condones the kind of same-sex relationship you are advocating. Every single time the Bible addresses the issue of same-sex activity it does so in the negative.
But just to show how silly your argument is, there are equally no Bible verses that condemn loving paedophilic relationships. Are you seriously suggesting that since the Scriptures do not explicitly condemn them they are therefore valid?
Your second point seems to have missed what I have written. I laid out that a coherent Biblical theology takes into account the entirety of the Scriptural witness on a particular topic and then interprets them all in a manner that doesn’t do abuse to any of them.
[Reply]
Sue
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May 28th, 2009 at 4:07 pm
I would argue that St Paul did not have the concept of a true homosexual but only of a heterosexual who engages in an act of deliberate perversion. As for sexual acts between an adult and child, these are not “loving” but abusive, can never, by definition constitute a life long commitment and are not an equitable “relationship” as one party, even if they seem compliant, is not in a position to understand what they are entering in to.
I am sure those who defended the practice of slavery using the bible also believed they had a “coherent Biblical theology.” We all bring to our interpretation of scripture our own perspectives, beliefs, knowledge and prejudices and interpret it in the light of these.
Blair
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June 1st, 2009 at 8:33 pm
But Peter, every time the Bible addresses the issue of lending money at interest it does so in the negative, to my knowledge… so this isn’t a knockdown argument and leaves the question of how to interpret the texts now…
in friendship, Blair
Peter Ould
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May 28th, 2009 at 3:02 pm
St Augustine wrote that the state of slavery was justly imposed on sinners as a penalty for their own benefit.
That’s a very warped view of what Augustine actually wrote (can you even quote chapter and verse in City of God for that?). Augustine’s position is that slavery is immoral, however it exists because human beings are sinful and therefore believe that they can own another human being. Only when this fundamental point is accepted (that slavery is ultimately sinful) does Augustine then move on to argue that God uses this sinful act of man for his own purposes, but this itself works within Augustine’s larger framework of the absolute sovereignty of God in all things.
There is an examination of the nature of “Christian slavery” in Augustine here, and it’s well worth a read.
[Reply]
William
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May 28th, 2009 at 7:57 pm
“The prime cause, then, of slavery is sin, which brings man under the dominion of his fellow – that which does not happen save by the judgment of God, with whom is no unrighteousness, and who knows how to award fit punishments to every variety of offence.”
ST AUGUSTINE, The City of God, 19:15
But never mind whose understanding of St Augustine is the correct one; the fact remains that the Church declined for centuries to condemn slavery and was less than tolerant towards those who did condemn it.
As for the Bible really being quite easy to understand, what need then for the Augsburg Confession, the Belgic Confession, the Canons of Dordt, the Westminster Confession or the Thirty-nine Articles?
“It has happened that all the answers which I have seen to the former part of “The Age of Reason” have been written by priests; and these pious men, like their predecessors, contend and wrangle and understand the Bible; each understands it differently, but each understands it best; and they have agreed in nothing but in telling their readers that Thomas Paine understands it not.”
THOMAS PAINE, The Age of Reason, Part Second (1795)
[Reply]
Peter,
Why can’t you love God enough to love yourself the way He made you?
Holy matrimony is a recognition that the physical act of love between two people should be sacred; a sacrament. God made some of us to love members of our own sex. For a man whose entire God-given desire is for another man to enter into marriage with a woman is a perversion of nature and nature’s God. I don’t know if one could stop short of regarding such a union as a sinful rejection of God’s will; caring more about the clamor of The World and what The World is selling us, than about the call of God to live and love as he intends us to.
It is never too late to find one’s way back to Christ’s love.
-Tim
[Reply]
Peter Ould
Reply:
June 18th, 2009 at 10:48 pm
Tim,
You wrote “Holy matrimony is a recognition that the physical act of love between two people should be sacred; a sacrament. God made some of us to love members of our own sex.”
I’m afraid I simply disagree. The Bible shows very clearly that I wasn’t created to be sexually active with another man and that rather, I was created to love a woman. I decided to believe that was true and in doing so I discovered that God was faithful to his Word.
[Reply]
Sue
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June 19th, 2009 at 3:24 pm
Hi Tim,
I’m going to play “devil’s advocate” here ( probably not the most tactful term though…) and stick up for Peter and his marriage. I do agree that it is most inadvisable for a man who is wholly same sex attracted to enter into a marriage. However, I understand things are more complex in Peter’s case, that he fell in love with and found himself attracted to his wife at a sufficient level for him to feel he could marry ( hope I have that right.)
No one should have to hear their marriage , to someone that they do after all love very deeply (and with whom they are bringing up a child) , described as , ” a perversion of nature” or ” a sinful rejection of God’s will.”
[Reply]
Timothy Cronin
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June 19th, 2009 at 10:21 pm
I am using that common argument, often used by neo-Platonist, the Catholic Church and other diverse fans of Saint Thomas Aquinas, “The Law of Nature”, which states that anything which stands opposed to nature, as created by a purposeful God, is sinful. This traditional argument has been used throughout history to condemn homosexual acts as being against God’s plan for human procreation. If one begins to regards homosexuality not as another’s “normal” sexuality perverted, or turned to sin, or diseased… but rather as one’s own healthy and appropriate nature… the embracing of an “un-natural” sexuality SHOULD be regarded as a willing rejection of The Law of Nature and God’s will FOR THAT INDIVIDUAL.
I understand Sue’s compassionate concern that Peter’s marriage should not be regarded as “sinful” or a “perversion of nature”, especially as he and his wife are raising a child. My concern also extends to gay men and lesbians who have been told by the Pope and Christianity that their sexuality is “…a more or less strong tendency ordered towards an inherent moral evil”; that gay men and women are “objectively disordered” that gay marriage is “a new ideology of evil”; and that gay parents “do violence” to their children by their very existence. Perhaps I am more of a Thomist than even Ol’ Eggs Bennedict himself. Let us tolderol for Nature, and Nature’s God, embracing the sexuality which He, in his unknowable wisdom, has seen fit to bless us.
As a gay man, I love and cherish a great many women in my life. They are wonderful friends, mentors… enrichers of my life. I never felt, however, any compulsion to disregard God’s will while ruining my life and theirs by a proposal of marriage.
-Tim
[Reply]
Sue
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June 20th, 2009 at 11:48 am
Hi Tim,
My concern also extends to gay men and women whose relationships are described as “perverted” or “objectively disordered.” I am appalled that gay parents are told they “do violence to their children” by their very existence. It is prejudiced,disrespectful and unchristian. However, people in mixed orientation marriages also face great prejudice and disrespectful blanket assumptions.
[Reply]
Timothy Cronin
Reply:
June 23rd, 2009 at 7:04 pm
Dear Sue,
With the advent of gay liberation, and the freedom to enter into loving relationships with the person to whom one is also sexually attracted, the idea of a gay man or lesbian woman marrying a member of the opposite sex to secure the approbation of society, goverment, church, the law courts, family, and Big Ol’ God should be behind us. There have been mixed orientation marriages for as long as homosexuality was been regarded as a sin, perversion, or crime. As one begins to understand that God loves us as he created us and has a plan for us to be happy, we should seek that happiness which was intended for us personally. We are blessed, in many places today, to live in an age where gay men and women are no longer regarded as sick or sinful. I don’t understand the mindset of folks who want to make the box as small and confining as possible. The “word of God” argument is not based on logic or common sense, much less human reason. When the findings of Western Humanism, Philosophy, Psychology, and my own God-given reason stand squared off against the “Good News” of the Bronze-Age bi-polar Jewish sky-god… I’ll follow Reason.
“Technology versus Religion? Oh, Technology definitely… Given a choice between air-conditioning and the Pope… I’ll take air-conditioning.”
-Woody Allen
[Reply]
Timothy Cronin
Reply:
June 23rd, 2009 at 7:11 pm
http://www.theonion.com/content/node/28484
[Reply]
Trinidad. Adventist.Gay?!
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June 24th, 2009 at 12:12 pm
When the findings of Western Humanism, Philosophy, Psychology, and my own God-given reason stand squared off against the “Good News” of the Bronze-Age bi-polar Jewish sky-god… I’ll follow Reason.
———————————
This has surely served us well in the 18th, 19th and 20th Century no?
The Soviet Union was a “reason-based” society and look at what it spawned all over the world (although it appears nobody likes to talk about it because it is embarrassing to the cause of secularists).
All this “reason” and we still have the same human problems to deal with…
[Reply]
Timothy Cronin
Reply:
June 24th, 2009 at 7:54 pm
The former Soviet Union was “reason based.”?
Surely Communism is an ideology, and the Soviet Union the very embodiment of rule by idealogues. The dictates of the Supreme Soviet were as absolute and demanded, ‘faith based’ acceptance as surely as any Pope speaking ex-cathedra, or any fundamentalist Christian speaking of the dictates of “the word of God”.
Someone, I forget who, once said: “Christianity is the chief heresy of Judiaism, just as Communism is the chief heresy of Christianity.” I believe even C.S. Lewis once remarked, that reading the “word of God” one would come away one moment feeling that Jesus was a conservative monarchist, while at other times a raving Socialist; or something to that effect.
Prof. Colin Rowe, the briliant theorist and writer, although also an architect, once said in my presence: “The chief monument to the Eighteenth Century and the Age of Reason is… The United States and its Constitution.” If you’d like to see a goverment based as closely on the dictates of Reason look to the work of Jefferson, Adam, Monroe, Madison… good secularists, one and all.
-Tim
[Reply]
Hi Tim,
I agree that gay people entering into heterosexual union for any reasons should be “behind us”. If anyone told me they were gay , or post gay/ ex gay and about to marry, I’d do my utmost to disuade them on all sorts of grounds, not least the potential harm they were likely to inflict on spouse and possible offspring.
However, there are people who married when attitudes were less enlightened and who did so under pressure from a conservative or evangelical mindset or who were persuaded they were “healed” ( no – I don’t think homosexuality is an affliction to be healed from…) I do support the right of these people to honour their marriage vows without prejudice from others, if that is their wish. I also support their right to leave those marriages if they feel that is the right thing.
The situation is also more complex. Some people feel no sexual or romantic attraction to someone of the opposite sex. For others their sexuality is more fluid. Some recent studies have suggested for example that for many women their sexuality is more fluid and that ( some) people may settle with a partner who is not their predominant gender preference ( say they are a 2 on the Kinsey scale – but meet and fall for a same sex partner because they fall in love with them or happen to have a strong sexual/ emotional chemistry with that particular person.)I have by the way met one woman in a same sex relationship who describes herself as “heterosexual” but “fell in love with” a woman. Also, what about political lesbians who choose a same sex relationship on feminist / ideological grounds although they may not be same sex attracted? OK – I think that is a bit weird, but then it’s not my life, is it?
Some gay people genuinely believe same sex behaviour is out of the question due to religious convictions. If you like, they are “ideological heterosexuals”, although their ideology is religious, not feminist as in the case of political lesbians. I personally feel they are “brainwashed” – but then some people might argue that political lesbians are “brainwashed” by feminist ideology ( I did say i was playing devil’s advocate!)
As to my own beliefs, I think it is so important to be true to who you are. I wish I could convince all gay people that a same sex relationship is holy in God’s sight, a natural thing for a gay person and a source of benefit to the individual and society. However, once someone with different convictions enters into an opposite sex relationship, I reserve / suspend judgement. I remember that the situation MAY be less “cut and dried” than it seems and above all, I wish them well.
[Reply]