(no subject)
Today in my abnormal psych class my professor (my favorite prof of the semester) told us all that he's gay. He mentioned it in passing during a lecture on sexual dysfunction/disorders/deviance, and for whatever reason it caught me very much off guard. For some reason I never would have thought he was.
It's not like he's super manly, or anything like that. A lot of his mannerisms seem to indicate that he's gay in retrospect. And I normally identify gay people pretty quickly, but not with this guy.
It made me wonder what exactly it is about him that made me miss it, or not see it coming. After thinking about it for awhile, it occurred to me that the thing about him that defies every stereotype that I've come to accept as fact about homosexuals, is the fact that he has always presented both sides of moral/religious/social issues very objectively and fairly, even when Christianity or other far-right conservative opinions are involved. I realized I had even started to assume that he might be a christian because of this fairness.
Anyway, that led me to two interesting realizations:
The first is that it's sad how rare it is for anyone except for Christians to give a christian line of reasoning a fair chance. People are so quick to dismiss any christian argument as 'fundamentalist judge mental intolerant BS' and very, very rarely give any credit to the fact that it is a legitimate belief that deserves tolerance just as much as the next opinion. Everyone has an assumption about christians and Christianity based on the stereotypes they believe or have heard. No one gives us the benefit of the doubt.
The second thing I realized is that I do the same. thing. The very fact that it shocked me that a homosexual could be fair, reasonable, and have an open and objective view of christianity shows how hardwired my brain is.
I guess the bottom line is that everyone deserves the benefit of the doubt on some level. Acceptance doesn't mean the same thing as approval. And it needs to go both ways.
It's not like he's super manly, or anything like that. A lot of his mannerisms seem to indicate that he's gay in retrospect. And I normally identify gay people pretty quickly, but not with this guy.
It made me wonder what exactly it is about him that made me miss it, or not see it coming. After thinking about it for awhile, it occurred to me that the thing about him that defies every stereotype that I've come to accept as fact about homosexuals, is the fact that he has always presented both sides of moral/religious/social issues very objectively and fairly, even when Christianity or other far-right conservative opinions are involved. I realized I had even started to assume that he might be a christian because of this fairness.
Anyway, that led me to two interesting realizations:
The first is that it's sad how rare it is for anyone except for Christians to give a christian line of reasoning a fair chance. People are so quick to dismiss any christian argument as 'fundamentalist judge mental intolerant BS' and very, very rarely give any credit to the fact that it is a legitimate belief that deserves tolerance just as much as the next opinion. Everyone has an assumption about christians and Christianity based on the stereotypes they believe or have heard. No one gives us the benefit of the doubt.
The second thing I realized is that I do the same. thing. The very fact that it shocked me that a homosexual could be fair, reasonable, and have an open and objective view of christianity shows how hardwired my brain is.
I guess the bottom line is that everyone deserves the benefit of the doubt on some level. Acceptance doesn't mean the same thing as approval. And it needs to go both ways.