"Who shall blame him, if, so standing for a moment, he dwells upon fame, upon search parties, upon cairns raised by grateful followers over his bones? Finally, who shall blame the leader of the doomed expedition, if, having adventured to the uttermost, and used his strength wholly to the last ounce and fallen asleep not much caring if he wakes or not, he now perceives by some pricking in his toes that he lives, and does not on the whole object to live, but requires sympathy, and whisky, and some one to tell the story of his suffering to at once? Who shall blame him? Who will not secretly rejoice when the hero puts his armour off, and halts by the window and gazes at his wife and son, who, very distant at first, gradually come closer and closer, till lips and book and head are clearly before him, though still lovely and unfamiliar from the intensity of his isolation and the waste of ages and the perishing of the stars, and finally putting his pipe in his pocket and bending his magnificent head before her—who will blame him if he does homage to the beauty of the world?"
-To the Lighthouse, Virginia Woolf
I am a Christian. But I have heterodox beliefs that some might consider heresy. Some of you Christians might read this and think I am going to Hell. Fine. You can wallow in your arrogance, because according to the Bible, no one knows whether they are going to Hell or Heaven. That's for the afterlife.
But I am also an intellectual. I read and read and read. I love David Foster Wallace. I've taken courses in feminist and disability theory and read Foucault, Derrida, Marx, Hegel, Beauvoir, Butler, Sedgwick (even became her FB friend before she died), Lacan, Althusser, and Freud, in addition to all of the non-fiction and fiction reading I've had to do for my English classes. I hope this isn't sounding arrogant. I'm trying to show my ethos. I want you to know I've carefully considered this topic for years. I've read and plumbed the depths of secular philosophy as it relates to this topic. But I am still a novice in terms of philosophical thinking.
I don't need to explain or justify why I think homosexuality is acceptable and even beneficial to society. We live in the 21st century.
The primary reason I love and accept homosexuals (and encourage their lifestyle) is that I am a moral human being. I know the Bible discourages it. But I don't care.
It's okay. It's okay to be gay. It's not okay for other people to tell you you shouldn't be who you are because of what they believe. It's not okay to impose our senses of morality on a minority of people to deny them their legal rights.
Christians, a thought to consider—is it okay to be a sinner?
I know it's so fucking hard for all of you closeted gay Christians. You know, fuck that 'it gets better' slogan. Sometimes, it gets worse. Sometimes, you'll want to kill yourself because you can't stand who you are.
But you gotta have faith. Maybe not in God, but in yourself.
8 comments:
How far the apple has fallen from the tree
You can love them as individuals but not the
unholy sexual acts which are fornication.
To the above: how can you separate behavior from identity? Does your behavior not constitute part of who you are as a person? Telling someone what to do with their body, and shaming yourself from what you might want to do with yours is the reason that so many people do indeed want to commit suicide. It's for this reason that your children, should they turn out to be any kind of queer (gay, trans, pansexual, panromantic asexual, etc.) will likely go through depression and contemplate suicide.
If you're fine putting you own potentially queer children six feet under by trying to claim there is a difference between behavior and identity, then there is little left to say that shouldn't just be left between you and God in the afterlife.
Everyone has different desires to behave certain ways. Everyone has desired to steal at one point, but that doesn't make that person a thief. And everyone has desired something bad for someone else at point, but that doesn't make that person a murderer. Those people whose essence is to wish and inflict pain and suffering on others are the ones who are most in peril in the afterlife. Those seeking to experience a pleasure that everyone else is entitled to, probably are in less peril.
But just to be clear, it should be stated very VERY explicitly and clearly. Damning the behavior does NOT stop it from happening. At one point, the desire becomes overwhelming and there is no level of prayer that will make it vanish. The friends that surround you in the pews at Sunday service all have something to hide, many of them (FAR more than you think) have thought thoughts or performed acts that make them other than strictly heteronormative and heterosexual. But they are still doing it. Sometimes more or less frequently than others, but it is still happening. And it will continue to happen. Those people who are good people who contribute to their communities and keep the Sabbath, but also have a particularly sexual desire or gender expression, are living their lives in shame. Steeped in shame all day, every day. They are forever hiding themselves from others and you will never get to know them for who they truly are because they continue to show you only what they think they have to show you in order to have your love. No level of attempts at explaining that you love THEM but not their BEHAVIOR will make them feel more comfortable around you. They will never open up to you. They will never tell you. And they also will go to their grave with a soul full of secrets and shame after a life of faithful service to God. If you are indeed fine with making those in your community suffer their entire lives because they feel unsafe in their own temple of God, then again that is something to be left between you and God in the afterlife.
Not a huge fan of your tone, and this does not contribute much but disgruntled preaching to the current discourse around this topic. Also, it sounds like you could benefit from the company of other Christians who value intellect. You're not the first or only Christian to have asked these questions, and you will not be the last. Instead of preaching, maybe find people to ask questions with?
The fact is that people are killing themselves. And many Christians (particularly the ones I have had the pleasure of being surrounded by) have great conversations with new ideas and discourse. The purpose of my above comment (comment #3) was to respond directly to the negativity of the first two comments, a negativity that is growing smaller by the day in Christian communities in the US and globally.
And discourse/conversation is fabulous, but it doesn't count if one party continues to offer the same solution over and over without recognizing that that approach has led to the suffering and suicide of thousands.
Truly, it is not from the Bible that the greatest strengths of humanity spring, but in human nature itself. The drive to love one another, platonically, romantically, fraternally, is stronger than the urge to hate one another.
If you can find one or two decent ideas in the bible, then fine. But do not for a second pretend that it is not boring, immoral, and completely useless for human progress in the majority of its text. The bible is the word of forty fallible human authors, hundreds of years removed from one another and the events that they attempt to describe.
i need to practice some mental gymnastics to understand your bit about your ethos
Great discussion, everyone.
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