I’m making friends with a new Mac. I respect its clean lines and uncluttered appearance. I didn’t want to dump a bunch of old docs from my HP laptop into it, so I’ve been going through and doing a lot of deleting. In the process I’ve found a few things I feel good about having written. This is one from May 29, 2004. I’ve made a few tweaks — very few. I’m grateful the country has come so far.
Dear Cousin, Friend, Relative – I’ve been hearing from you all —
RE your e-mail urging I send an electonically generated thank you note to President Bush for his stand against gay marriage. OR urging me to contact my political representative to act immediately. OR whatever else you’ve asked me to do to “save” marriage…….
I write this with love and respect for all you stand for, but I can’t stay silent on this one.
I am a Christian. I acknowledge that I’m saved from hatred, sin and condemnation – from all manner of evil, from hell in every sense of the word – through Christ — through the life lived by Jesus. His is the consumate example, the only way. He is unparalleled in the universe for the love he expressed, the forgiveness he showed, the suffering he endured. I love Jesus.
And I take his charge to follow him very seriously. His most simple and profound counsel was “Love one another.” And he told us how to love: “As I have loved you.”
He loved unconditionally, freely, extravagantly. He loved with everything he had, with total commitment. — inclusively, unselfishly, passionately – so much so that his final earthly act has taken the name “The Passion.”
I will take the word and works of Jesus Christ as the example by which to form my social attitudes and opinions.
Not the proscriptive strictures addressed to an ancient middle eastern tribe who, like new born children, had to have everything dictated to them, even to their dietary and clothing practices!
Not the detailed counsel attributed to Paul, who, inspired by his own Christian conversion experience, felt impelled and ordained to tell every other Christian how to conduct themselves in their personal and congregant lives. (Whoever heard of something like that happening! Yeah. Right.) In all fairness, much of what is attributed to Paul is now acknowledged to have come from other sources. This should be evident, in that some of his counsel is at odds with Jesus’ practice and direction.
And what was that?
“Love God. Love one another.” Do it the best you know how. Give your all. Commit to those you love. Be there for them – always and in all ways. Provide for their needs now and their future security. Honor their hopes and dreams. Live in community with one another and in communion with God. Mind your own business. Don’t exclude or reject any honest heart for any reason.
Jesus didn’t see us as sexual beings. He saw us as human beings in every state and stage of progress toward realizing our God-created spiritual identities.
Who on earth, given the persecution, revulsion and exclusion which comes with that state, would choose to be gay? As a Christian Science practitioner I’ve worked long – and fruitlessly – to help individuals who came to me asking for help in “healing” homosexuality. I’ve seen them overcome sensuality through prayer – as much a deterrent to spiritual growth in heterosexuals as in homosexuals. Yet the feeling of being NOT heterosexual has remained. I’ve witnessed their self-hatred, despair and guilt for this. And it’s only within the past five years or so, that I’ve come to the conclusion that trying to “heal” someone of homosexuality is like trying to “heal” a woman of having periods. Some things are just a part of being human – maybe not pleasant or attractive to all sensibilities, but not “abnormal.”
I may not be able to personally comprehend what it is to be homosexual, no more than men can imagine having a period, but God forgive me for adding any weight these dear ones already carry. God forgive me for marginalizing them from “civilized” society, as surely as menstruating women were shunted off as “unclean” to red tents in the desert.
Civilized society benefits from stable relationships and moral commitments in many forms. These commitments also carry responsibility. Some of them include becoming a member of and serving in a church; serving in the military; committing time and effort to a community association board; becoming a regular volunteer for any number of civic organizations. Getting married. Excluding people from the right to participate in these kinds of relationships and commitments – and thus depriving them from responsibility — does not contribute to the stability of society. Rather, it separates and scatters — relegating whole groups to the fringes or hounding them into an underground culture. And then we click our tongues over their irresponsible behavior!
Anyone willing to commit morally and legally to a civilized institution these days – to be willing to say “I’m there for you with all I am and with all I’ve got. I’ll be there for you in sickness and health, for richer and poorer. You can count on me always and in all ways,” — should be encouraged, not vilified.
Mary Baker Eddy might have been addressing this same subject — and many others, as well — when she wrote:
In Christian Science, the law of Love rejoices the heart; and Love is Life and Truth. Whatever manifests aught else in its effects upon mankind, demonstrably is not Love. We should measure our love for God by our love for man; and our sense of Science will be measured by our obedience to God, — fulfilling the law of Love, doing good to all; imparting, so far as we reflect them, Truth, Life, and Love to all within the radius of our atmosphere of thought.
The only justice of which I feel at present capable, is mercy and charity toward every one, — just so far as one and all permit me to exercise these sentiments toward them, — taking special care to mind my own business.
Welcome to Virgin Territory! 