friendly correspondence?
so a few days ago i sent a happy birthday email to an old friend. this woman and her husband were once some of my closest friends, but everything changed when i came out of the closet. still, we talk once in a blue moon, and i sent her birthday wishes because i love her and miss her. and apparently i said something about the election in that email...in what i understand now was a clear fit of insanity.
her response to that email:
thanks - i did get your little email. i remember lots of festive novembers. i guess it makes me a little sad though since the change we want is so different. i'm heartened by the election of Obama and the direction i hope our country will take. but i was happy that true, sacred marriage as God intended was upheld. i don't believe we'll ever agree on this and i don't want the world my children will live in to look like what you are fighting for. and i'm sure it's vice versa. my heart is truly grieved
hey X,
no, yeah, i definitely understand exactly where you’re coming from. for the great majority of my life, i also believed that homosexuality was a sin, so i really do know what you mean and the feelings you’re expressing. and i won’t try and convince you otherwise or change what you truly believe in your heart about God’s will. the thing is though, even back when i would have agreed with you about the sinful, fallen condition of homosexuality, as far as i can remember, i would have never let that belief spill over into my politics. i even remember once, with tash, signing a petition in ham center pro-gay marriage. we had talked about it and prayed about it and finally came to the conclusion that we really couldn’t think of any reason why our civil rights should be different from theirs.
'cause that’s the thing. i’ve been thinking about this a lot lately (obviously) and i really just think it’s a bad idea to try and guide government by a particular set of religious beliefs. even supposing that you and i had the very same end goal (that everyone may know and serve Christ!), it just seems that history has shown that forcing this to happen by legislation isn’t the way to do it. even on just a practical level, even if we don’t take into account if it’s the “nice” way to do it, concretely it just doesn’t work. no matter what the law says, it won’t change people’s beliefs. it’s never worked in the past as far as i know, and in this particular moment in history and society, it definitely isn’t working, big time, with the gay/lesbian/etc population. for the most part, the church is seen as a heartless force who is scared of that which it doesn’t understand, unwilling to get to know it, and powerfully directing hatred towards one particular group. i’ve seen it from both sides now, and that’s why of course i still understand how you feel, and how lots of Christians feel. but from over here on this side, no one is perceiving the love and concern that goes into your prayers and hopes for us, because it’s being expressed by power and force. i hate to throw anyone under a bus here, but i know another godly christian woman who just married someone who is an atheist with a hindu background. i assume that this grieves your heart as well. but there aren’t any LAWS against it, you know? and what kind of a country would we be living in if there were? doesn’t that sound extreme to you? to live in a place where we honestly believed that we could compel a nation to honor God by force?
the big deal right now about california (florida didn’t surprise me, frankly) is that there WAS gay marriage for almost six months, and then--there wasn’t. not only is this incredibly damaging to the psyche of an entire group of people (imagine them each thinking, “oh! i thought i WAS of equal worth there for a while!”) but also creates this bizarre legal and legislative no-man’s land. since mid-may 2008, when gay marriage was legalized by the CA supreme court, between 17,000 and 18,000 couples were married. to this point, no one still knows what to do with those people! some officials have said things like, they “presume” that the legal relationships will still be valid, but since the constitution now says they are not…no one really is sure. i think the supreme court will probably make some call on it while they hear the arguments going back and forth on both sides, but what an odd and painful limbo to be in in the meantime.
that’s the thing…like i said at first, i’m really not trying to change your religious beliefs. and i’m well aware that OVER EMAIL is one of the silliest places to have this kind of conversation :). but at this point in my life, i can’t possibly NOT talk about the political side of things, since it runs my life. you know what i mean? i want to come home, X i want to come back to my country. i want to live closer to my friends and family, i want to go back to school, i want to start a career. i sure am getting old enough! but because i can’t marry my spouse in the US, or get her in any other way (trust me on this one), then i am forced to pick between her and my country. and, i am part of one of the only sectors of society who has to make that choice. how is that fair and equal treatment under government??
i’ll be the first to admit that i am mightily self-centered; i didn’t really get overly political until it affected me. but at this point it’s 110% affecting me. every major thing in my life right now, other than what my heart feels and believes, is governed by what laws the US currently has on the books for same-sex relationships. so I can’t not talk about it, protest against it, pray against it, donate, etc, until the day i feel like i really do have the same rights as every other tax-paying citizen. 'cause i still pay taxes, you know?
i don’t see why we don’t take a cue from some of these latin american countries. down here, all the government does is civil unions, and then each couple may go to the church/synagogue/mosque/etc of their choice (or not) for the religious ceremony. and these are supposed to be catholic countries! but in some things it seems like they’ve got a better grasp on the concept of separating church and state than we do.
i am sorry that your heart is grieved, my friend. i wish i wasn’t a part of that. but i wish too that lots of people in my land of birth (including 52% of californians and about 70-something of floridians) didn’t try ANY MORE to legislate whether or not i am loving and serving God the way they think i should. that’s the grieving-est part of all, for me.
i'll stop now...thanks for reading this far, if you made it.
reactions i had to her email but didn't respond to her on because that would clearly have been counter-productive:
x-posted about.
her response to that email:
thanks - i did get your little email. i remember lots of festive novembers. i guess it makes me a little sad though since the change we want is so different. i'm heartened by the election of Obama and the direction i hope our country will take. but i was happy that true, sacred marriage as God intended was upheld. i don't believe we'll ever agree on this and i don't want the world my children will live in to look like what you are fighting for. and i'm sure it's vice versa. my heart is truly grieved
hey X,
no, yeah, i definitely understand exactly where you’re coming from. for the great majority of my life, i also believed that homosexuality was a sin, so i really do know what you mean and the feelings you’re expressing. and i won’t try and convince you otherwise or change what you truly believe in your heart about God’s will. the thing is though, even back when i would have agreed with you about the sinful, fallen condition of homosexuality, as far as i can remember, i would have never let that belief spill over into my politics. i even remember once, with tash, signing a petition in ham center pro-gay marriage. we had talked about it and prayed about it and finally came to the conclusion that we really couldn’t think of any reason why our civil rights should be different from theirs.
'cause that’s the thing. i’ve been thinking about this a lot lately (obviously) and i really just think it’s a bad idea to try and guide government by a particular set of religious beliefs. even supposing that you and i had the very same end goal (that everyone may know and serve Christ!), it just seems that history has shown that forcing this to happen by legislation isn’t the way to do it. even on just a practical level, even if we don’t take into account if it’s the “nice” way to do it, concretely it just doesn’t work. no matter what the law says, it won’t change people’s beliefs. it’s never worked in the past as far as i know, and in this particular moment in history and society, it definitely isn’t working, big time, with the gay/lesbian/etc population. for the most part, the church is seen as a heartless force who is scared of that which it doesn’t understand, unwilling to get to know it, and powerfully directing hatred towards one particular group. i’ve seen it from both sides now, and that’s why of course i still understand how you feel, and how lots of Christians feel. but from over here on this side, no one is perceiving the love and concern that goes into your prayers and hopes for us, because it’s being expressed by power and force. i hate to throw anyone under a bus here, but i know another godly christian woman who just married someone who is an atheist with a hindu background. i assume that this grieves your heart as well. but there aren’t any LAWS against it, you know? and what kind of a country would we be living in if there were? doesn’t that sound extreme to you? to live in a place where we honestly believed that we could compel a nation to honor God by force?
the big deal right now about california (florida didn’t surprise me, frankly) is that there WAS gay marriage for almost six months, and then--there wasn’t. not only is this incredibly damaging to the psyche of an entire group of people (imagine them each thinking, “oh! i thought i WAS of equal worth there for a while!”) but also creates this bizarre legal and legislative no-man’s land. since mid-may 2008, when gay marriage was legalized by the CA supreme court, between 17,000 and 18,000 couples were married. to this point, no one still knows what to do with those people! some officials have said things like, they “presume” that the legal relationships will still be valid, but since the constitution now says they are not…no one really is sure. i think the supreme court will probably make some call on it while they hear the arguments going back and forth on both sides, but what an odd and painful limbo to be in in the meantime.
that’s the thing…like i said at first, i’m really not trying to change your religious beliefs. and i’m well aware that OVER EMAIL is one of the silliest places to have this kind of conversation :). but at this point in my life, i can’t possibly NOT talk about the political side of things, since it runs my life. you know what i mean? i want to come home, X i want to come back to my country. i want to live closer to my friends and family, i want to go back to school, i want to start a career. i sure am getting old enough! but because i can’t marry my spouse in the US, or get her in any other way (trust me on this one), then i am forced to pick between her and my country. and, i am part of one of the only sectors of society who has to make that choice. how is that fair and equal treatment under government??
i’ll be the first to admit that i am mightily self-centered; i didn’t really get overly political until it affected me. but at this point it’s 110% affecting me. every major thing in my life right now, other than what my heart feels and believes, is governed by what laws the US currently has on the books for same-sex relationships. so I can’t not talk about it, protest against it, pray against it, donate, etc, until the day i feel like i really do have the same rights as every other tax-paying citizen. 'cause i still pay taxes, you know?
i don’t see why we don’t take a cue from some of these latin american countries. down here, all the government does is civil unions, and then each couple may go to the church/synagogue/mosque/etc of their choice (or not) for the religious ceremony. and these are supposed to be catholic countries! but in some things it seems like they’ve got a better grasp on the concept of separating church and state than we do.
i am sorry that your heart is grieved, my friend. i wish i wasn’t a part of that. but i wish too that lots of people in my land of birth (including 52% of californians and about 70-something of floridians) didn’t try ANY MORE to legislate whether or not i am loving and serving God the way they think i should. that’s the grieving-est part of all, for me.
i'll stop now...thanks for reading this far, if you made it.
reactions i had to her email but didn't respond to her on because that would clearly have been counter-productive:
- you don't want your children to live in a world where....people can love ANYONE? yeah. i think at the point where society starts seriously expressing this is when we need to take a step back and ask ourselves, "HOW did we get to this belief, using as a starting point, 'God loves me and I want to love Him back with my life?' ". we may be a few millenia late on this, but it's never to late to start....
- you don't want your children to live in a world where....the government allows freedom of religion? REALLY? people are always talking about how our forefathers founded this nation on christian principles and faith. i don't know how accurate that is (i wasn't there), but it IS clear that they founded it on SEPARATION of church and state. i don't get why this is so hard to comprehend. we don't have endless debates on various other religious things we don't agree with (do we pass referendums making it illegal to keep kosher because Jesus said it's not what goes into our mouths that make us unclean? do we make laws saying that all inhabitants of the u.s.a. must marry someone of their same religion because "oxen should not be unequally yoked"? did you notice we tore down the laws that regimented store closings on sunday--because, incredibly, not every citizen of the u.s. is a church-goer?) so you'll understand why i suspect this issue has more to do with personal prejudice than actual religious fervor.
- your heart is greived? YOUR heart is greived? how do you think mine feels, when you tell me that i am so perverted and disgusting that i RUIN THE UNIVERSE FOR YOUR CHILDREN? i can't believe you really think that. i have to believe you just haven't thought this one through yet.
x-posted about.