This was a very interesting article (copied on top) to me. It was written by a gay African-American and how he grew up praying every day for God to change him, or "...stop having crushes on boys..." As I read through this it caused me to put myself in his shoes. How difficult it must have been for him to not tell his parents, pretend to be something he didn't feel comfortable with, begging God for help but without feeling any answers coming. He must have felt alone; many times in his article he talks about how depressed he was because around the age of five years old he felt like he was going to Hell and that he was a sinner. I have had many friends in my life who are homosexual and none of them have ever presented themselves in a way to make me hate them or dislike them. In fact, I would even argue that they were more compassionate and likable than many heterosexuals. Of course, I understand that is a very small sample size to make such a comparison, but I feel it is substantial enough for me to think twice before I judge and categorize every living gay person. I think this article was well written and worth the read.
Saturday, January 28, 2012
Praying to stop being Gay
http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2011/05/22/my-faith-how-i-learned-to-stop-praying-away-the-gay/
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That is very true, I have nothing against Homosexuals, and do agree with you that they tend to be compassionate and kind to everyone, where as most Heterosexuals that I know tend to have a thing against Homosexuals before getting to know them. Being gay does not make you a bad person, although I disagree with Homosexual acts.
ReplyDeleteThe linked article was extremely insightful. I particularly enjoyed the fact that it was written by and African-American, which brings a subtle salience to the idea that gay-discrimination is no different than racial discrimination.
ReplyDeleteIf we were to jump back to the 1960s and ask equal-rights antagonists their rationale for discrimination, would their responses be any different from those offered against gays today? They almost certainly would sight scripture and demonstrate a fear of cultural pollution. Sound familiar?
Hindsight is 20/20 and therefore it becomes easy to scoff at our country's past bigotry toward blacks or women (prior to women's suffrage and other rights). Why should we think our present day society is at its moral pinnacle, infallible in its judgment? At the very least, we should be willing to acknowledge that even as we might do so, so did the generations before us. If we are to progress forward then, we must necessarily turn to reason, rather than authority and tradition, to examine our own biases to which we might be unknowingly susceptible.
If our children and grandchildren are to respect us, we must realize that "our church told us to" is no excuse to marginalize members of our society, particularly when virtually all church's (including the LDS church) are likely to change their positions on the issue after a long enough period of time.