Carrying the Idiot Ball
I’m pathologically liberal, despite an upbringing in one of the last pockets of the 1950s left on the planet. The Isle of Man is a tiny community halfway between England and Ireland and, by dint of its presence in the centre of a pretty hostile environment, it’s very conservative. Gay rights were a huge issue when I was growing up there, to
( Read more... )
Working in genre fiction and being the level of religious I am is very hard some times, because at least twice a year, without fail, someone will open their mouth and insert their entire foot and then there’ll be a stampede of condemnation that starts out deserved and ends up lumping anyone with religious beliefs into the same category. Which is, of course, almost as stupid and offensive as the sweeping generalisations of the fundamentalists themselves.
Man, I hear *this*. I work less in the genre than you do, but I try to defuse these things when I come across it by confronting the person's claim, or explaining not everyone who considers themselves a member of the faith believes that. But it's still so incredibly frustrating and often I come out wondering if what I said made any difference at all. And I wonder if I don't lose a little of my own faith in the process (more faith in the church than faith, I guess).
I've come to believe that the best I can do really is the best I can for my faith. If other people see the way I act, and know what I'm about, then they might take something more positive away from the experience about people of faith in general. They might be willing to write-off someone's idiotic rant about homosexuality as an individual idiocy, not as a religous one.
I have those lingering doubts, too. I want to finger scars so I know that they're real, that it wasn't all just a story. But I'm like Mulder. More than anything I want to believe.
Reply
Leave a comment