FLAMES ON THE SIDE OF MY FACE
So last I heard, it was National Coming Out Day.
NOT National Let's Talk About Jesus Day.
A girl I know who is a generally lovely person and a great blues dancer, who has stayed at my house, and whom I consider a relatively decent dancer friend, posted the following note to Facebook: It's National Coming Out Day. I'm coming out with the Truth.
You may be able to see where this is going.
This friend had a very hard time of it. She started dating a female friend when she was in middle school in Texas, with about the result you'd expect: her hardcore Christian friends stopped talking to her, and hurtful rumors circulated about her. She decided in high school that she was bisexual, not gay, but even then, it wasn't until she accepted that God has two different-but-complementary plans for each gender-- and that those plans involve being straight and making babies-- that she found true inner peace.
There are a lot of really atrocious and heartbreaking quotes in her note. I could talk about how she "still struggles with homosexual thoughts," or about how her big epiphany was that her love for her girlfriend was just a corrupted version of the love she wanted from God, or how such love perverts the Lord's design. But I don't want to talk about that.
I am blinded with rage primarily by two things:
1) How she could do this in public on a day that is already so hard for so many people, particularly in the wake of the horrible, horrible loss of so many young gay kids due to bullying and intolerance.
2) How she could DARE to call what she's pandering "love." Love isn't looking on at somebody in concern and thinly-veiled disapproval. Love isn't about YOU and what YOU believe. To love someone you have to really accept them on their own terms, to love them for what they are and not what you wish they would be. Transformation is not the goal of love. There is not a reward for love.
That's what I believe, anyway. And I can't conceive of a universe in which God wouldn't back me up on that one.
I wanted to confront this girl. I really, really did. But I know that it wouldn't do any good, so I did what anyone seeking sociopolitical catharsis would do in 2010: I updated my Facebook status.
Happy National Coming Out Day! No matter where you fall on the broad spectrum of human sexuality, this Catholic girl offers you her unconditional love and support, redeemable at any time, valid through the foreseeable future. Love can only ever be a good thing.
Because it is true, and SOMEDAY everyone will see it.
ETA: Called my mumsy, talked about Christian love. We agree it's not what you feel, it's what you do. Feel better.
NOT National Let's Talk About Jesus Day.
A girl I know who is a generally lovely person and a great blues dancer, who has stayed at my house, and whom I consider a relatively decent dancer friend, posted the following note to Facebook: It's National Coming Out Day. I'm coming out with the Truth.
You may be able to see where this is going.
This friend had a very hard time of it. She started dating a female friend when she was in middle school in Texas, with about the result you'd expect: her hardcore Christian friends stopped talking to her, and hurtful rumors circulated about her. She decided in high school that she was bisexual, not gay, but even then, it wasn't until she accepted that God has two different-but-complementary plans for each gender-- and that those plans involve being straight and making babies-- that she found true inner peace.
There are a lot of really atrocious and heartbreaking quotes in her note. I could talk about how she "still struggles with homosexual thoughts," or about how her big epiphany was that her love for her girlfriend was just a corrupted version of the love she wanted from God, or how such love perverts the Lord's design. But I don't want to talk about that.
I am blinded with rage primarily by two things:
1) How she could do this in public on a day that is already so hard for so many people, particularly in the wake of the horrible, horrible loss of so many young gay kids due to bullying and intolerance.
2) How she could DARE to call what she's pandering "love." Love isn't looking on at somebody in concern and thinly-veiled disapproval. Love isn't about YOU and what YOU believe. To love someone you have to really accept them on their own terms, to love them for what they are and not what you wish they would be. Transformation is not the goal of love. There is not a reward for love.
That's what I believe, anyway. And I can't conceive of a universe in which God wouldn't back me up on that one.
I wanted to confront this girl. I really, really did. But I know that it wouldn't do any good, so I did what anyone seeking sociopolitical catharsis would do in 2010: I updated my Facebook status.
Happy National Coming Out Day! No matter where you fall on the broad spectrum of human sexuality, this Catholic girl offers you her unconditional love and support, redeemable at any time, valid through the foreseeable future. Love can only ever be a good thing.
Because it is true, and SOMEDAY everyone will see it.
ETA: Called my mumsy, talked about Christian love. We agree it's not what you feel, it's what you do. Feel better.