We are entering an area in my life where I began to truly understand how intermingled my political and religious view had become, and how one clouded the view of the other. In the early 90’s I had begun to explore topics I had been avoiding. One of the vehicles of that exploration was a local news talk radio station which provided a great breath of various topics, and current news and commentary on those topics. I did really understand it at the time, but this station also had a truly balanced cast of commentators across the spectrum of political and religious views. While individual commentators presented their segments quite pointedly from their perspective, there was a balance of views presented throughout the day’s programming. As I was working a second job at the time, which had me behind the wheel of a delivery van every Friday evening and most of every Saturday, and a commute to and from my regular job of a couple hours a day, I was afforded the opportunity to listen to a variety of this radio station’s programming.
One of the frequent topics of the time was homosexuality, a subject that I had strong opinions against, and could often be heard deriding the practice, with burgeoning HIV/AID crisis the really hot subject. In the late 80’s into the early 90’s, AIDS was touted by the media and most of the fundamentalist Christian community, as the gay disease, and I went along blithely agreeing. I was, of course, still a devout conservative, a struggling to find God. These people were going against God’s will with their homosexual lifestyle and HIV/AIDS was their punishment, right? Well, long about the early 90’s, reports started appearing in the mainstream media that a genetic link had been found to a predisposition to homosexually. Religious communities had been claiming for years that homosexually was a choice and a sin, and here was proof on a biological link.
Being still challenged in my views of what God is, and steeped in the religious dogmatic training of my youth, here presents my first real challenge to my conservative views. If you believe that God created everything in the universe, then God created homosexuals, and how could God create something that he viewed was a sin. Of course, there is the classic argument that it is a homosexual’s individual choice, by free will, to be homosexual. First it occurred to me to question, after witnessing how homosexual are treat in our society, why someone would freely chose to live a life which draws such serious ridicule, contempt, and disrespect, not to mention potential physical harm if discovered? Along comes this information that the choice may well have been made for them biologically, not of their own free will. I finally had to acquiesce that to call this a choice, one would then have to agree that one could chose to being one race over another, to have blue eyes instead of brown, be a blond over a redhead, to be 6’2” versus 5’9”. Most importantly, my young daughter born with the genetic abnormalities could or did somehow choose her fate. RIDICULOUS!!! As far as I have been able learn, these are not choices we can make for ourselves, they are part of our genetic makeup. With the exception of choosing a racial ethnicity, or a genetic anomaly, yes most of these things can be changed to a degree; colored contact lenses, hair coloring, or lifts would counter some issues. But, without constant attention and maintenance, we will revert back to our genetic programming. So why then assume that a homosexual person could change what is at his or her core? I had to accept that this too was ridiculous!
Some of the religious communities claim that mankind is the only species on the planet the practices homosexuality, that the laws of nature prohibit this practice for survival of the species. No true. There is a great deal of information available, more today than when I was first struggling with my views, that there are quite a few other species here on earth where homosexuality is practiced, around 1500 species by some accounts. A simple Google search will reveal almost 3 million hits on the topic of animal homosexuality. I will probably discuss genetics again in other pieces, but for now, the basic conflict for me at the time was; if you believe in God, and that he created the universe and all things in it – he created homosexuality. I was left with the conclusion that, like many things I had been taught, the negative views of homosexuality were a man-made creation, not that of some omnipresent divinity. More on this later as well.
As my research and self-assessment progressed, I found my views on this topic softening. The really turning point came in the mid 90’s. I was working at a company in the valley that had, for some time, been what was viewed as “gay friendly.” One of the gentlemen I worked with would often take smoke breaks together, and a work friendship began to develop. About two month into this friendship he told me one day, I am to this day not sure why, that he was gay. I hate to think what my response might have been a few years earlier, but, on this day I responded with, “That’s nice, I’m not. But, that doesn’t mean we can’t be friends.” Needless to say, I was rather surprised at my answer, and consider this, as I look back, probably the turning point for my transformation into the person I’ve becoming today.
While we are on the topic of homosexuality, I think this is an appropriate time to touch on a current issue that bears discussion. Gay Marriage…
I’ll go along with the idea that marriage is a religious concept. However, it is my opinion that “the church” gave up claims to the religious sanctity of marriage when it allowed secular societies, like our own, to legalize these unions thru licensing, and to perform civil unions as marriages not sanctified under one religion or another. It is my contention that, much like Coke is view as the generic term of most soda pop, marriage too has become the generic term for a religious or civil union. I feel that unless and until the churches get a secular society to agree that any civil union performed outside of a church is not a marriage, they have not claim to the sanctity issue. Add to this, the issue that some churches, in states where it is currently legal, willingly perform gay marriages. So, if we cannot discriminate against anyone because of their race (genetics), sex (genetics), or religion (free will), why then is it okay to discriminate again homosexuals (genetic or choice)?
Simply put, let the Gay community have the same rights and legal protections as anyone else in this country.
Your comments or questions are always welcome. Though I may ignore them.
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