Friday, September 30, 2011

I'm Here to Support the Person.

Lifestyle choices.  We all make them.  Some of us drive hummers, some of us drive smart cars.  Some of us join a gym, some of us prefer to eat Doritos in front of the tv during prime time.  Some of us, oh you see where I'm going with this, enough said.  People make different lifestyle choices, we all agree and disagree on our fellow citizens' personal choices.  We all have a right, within the bounds of the law as it stands, to make our own choices.  We also have the right to disagree with each other on our choice of food, entertainment, place of worship, occupation, and so forth.

So if I was going to say to someone, "you bleep bleep bleep bleepin bleep, you bought a hummer," what would be wrong with that statement? I would say that the part that would be wrong would be "you bleep bleep bleep bleeping bleep." I have every right to disagree with someone for buying a hummer do I not? I also have every right to disagree with someone's lifestyle choices if those choices go against my personal beliefs. I have a right to my own beliefs, you have a right to your own choices.  We have the right to disagree with each other.  What neither of us has the right to do is to abuse, either verbally or physically, the other person for a behavior that we disagree with.  You do not have the right to abuse me because I disagree with your lifestyle choices, nor do I have the right to impose my beliefs on you.

What I see with the gay rights movement, generally speaking,  is that they don't seem to see the difference between people honestly disagreeing with their lifestyle, and people who would abuse them.  They seem to lump everyone into the same basket. I have never abused or treated a homosexual unkindly in my life, and yet because I disagree with the gay lifestyle, I'm branded as a hate mongerer and a homophobe within the culture of the gay rights movement, simply for disagreeing.  Where's the tolerance or acceptance in that?  Where's the respect for diversity in that?

The important thing as a society, is that we agree that there is an accepted standard of conduct regarding the treatment of people, not that we all have to agree on political or controversial issues or lifestyle choices.  For the gay community to demand that everyone accept their lifestyle, and give no consideration to the fact that this demand contradicts the personal beliefs of millions if not billions of people is crossing a line.  It's crossing the personal boundaries of millions of people in demanding that everyone change their personal beliefs to conform with the GBLT community's convictions, or face being labelled. If I were writing the script for the gay rights movement, I would say something like, "you can disagree with my lifestyle, feel free, but you do not have the right to abuse me." I would de-emphasize sexuality, and instead emphasize our common humanity and ethical standards.  That's my suggestion.  I think that's where the gay rights movement alienates a lot of people, because they seem to insist, to use an analogy, on shoving meat in the face of vegetarians, and then insist on their right to be outraged when people are offended. I would be happy to stand on the sidelines of a parade to support people.  I am not going to go out of my way to see any standard of decency mocked and  ridiculed.

So anyway, I've had this recurring idea, that if I were going to go to a gay pride parade, and I never have to be honest for the above reasons, I was thinking I would like to wear a t-shirt that says, "I'm here to support the person." Feel free to let me know how you think that would be received. My hope is that in time reasonable people will find common ground on some of these very controversial issues.

Tuesday, September 6, 2011

Explaining the ex-gay movement, what it is, what it isn't.

I was reading an interview recently with Lady Gaga where she was asked, "how gay are you?"  For some reason this question stayed with me and I later realized it's significance, the reality that a public claim of being "born this way," becomes a pubic liability if the person later changes their mind, as in the case of Ricky Martin coming out, and then talking about a "genuine" relationship he had had more recently with a woman.  It reminded me of something a friend of mine had said some time ago.  She had struggled with same sex attraction for years and was commenting that it was interesting to her to "observe dynamics within the gay community, how some people self-identify as homosexual, they're comfortable with it, and then there are others..." The point I'm leading up to here is what some of us have thought for a long time, that the issue of sexual identity is not as neat and tidy as current public discussion will allow to be said.

Why is that? Why is the politically correct version of this issue that homosexuality is always static and always inborn?  I think it's because it is seen as necessary in the struggle for equal rights to maintain this claim.  I don't see why it should be. The foundation for basic human rights is that someone is a human being, is it not, regardless of how they choose to define themselves? As another example religion is sometimes thought to be cultural or inherited, while for other people it is a choice. Regardless, we recognize freedom of religion as a basic human right.  Why should a person's sexual orientation be any different?

The reason why I think it's important to talk about this however, is because the limitations put on the current discussion, I believe could be leading to discrimination in other ways. The reality is that we simply do not know that homosexuality is always inborn and always unchanging.  How on earth could you prove such a claim?  It sounds much more reasonable to me to say that this is a complex issue, that it varies from individual to individual, that there could be both genetic and environmental factors.  Isn't that what social science says about everything else?  So may I politely ask, where is the nurture factor in this discussion?  And may I also humbly ask, what about the individual's right to choose?

And so what about the "others," my friend was referring to?  What about another man I knew, that was going to counselors who repeatedly told him that this was just something he had to accept about himself, that was "unchangeable" even though  he wanted to change?  What about the person that says that they were bullied so much in the schoolyard that they began to believe the things that were said about them, later to realize as an adult that those things weren't true? What about the woman that told me that her early life left her longing for something that she went looking for in a relationship with another woman?  Do their stories count? What about the statistics that show that homosexuals are significantly more likely to have been abused as children? What about the rights of the counselor or researcher, etc. that disagrees with the standard therapy? Do they have a right to their medical or professional opinion? Or the thing that concerns me most, that young people may be labelled as being homosexual for feelings that are more often than not, just a normal part of growing up. I'm also concerned that those same young people are being told that all lifestyle choices are equal, without being told the medical risks.  I mean this in a very general sense.

And finally, the issue of faith based ministries who are reaching out to the gay community, do they have a right to exist?  Do homosexuals have the right to choose to be part of such a ministry? Why can't we just say that there are different options out there for different people?  Why are such ministries being black-listed and mis-labelled by the gay community? ( Or to be fair, are these ministries actively engaged in stifling the gay rights movement? Is it a fair assumption that they are? That's another question.)  I have heard people say that their lives were transformed by such ministries.  I've heard other people say that they walked away from similar ministries.  Again I ask, why can't we just acknowledge that there are different options out there for different people? Ex-gay ministries (let me know if you know of a better term) are not being forced on anyone.  They are there for the person who wants them.  Ex-gay ministries are not trying, in any way to diminish the fact that same sex attraction is a very real struggle for some people. I think this is where a lot of the misunderstanding comes in. The homosexual community appears to perceive that the term "ex-gay" somehow de-legitimizes their struggle.  I don't think religious ministries would see it this way.  From the perspective of a religious ministry the emphasis is spiritual.  From a Christian perspective (not all ex-gay ministries are Christian), the emphasis is that as Christians we find a new identify in Christ, and so this is how we choose to self-identify, as Christians. What is a lifelong struggle for some people, who have a greater hope in Christ. To be clear however, I'm also not de-legitimizing the work of ex-gay ministries in saying this either because I think the results speak for themselves, that this seems to work for some people.  Perhaps some of these general methods could be adopted by secular counselors even.  I'm not a counselor, I'm just suggesting that perhaps different streams could learn from each other rather than a one size fits all approach. And that is ultimately what I'm advocating for here, that we respect the autonomy of the individual in the self-identifying process, and that we search these issues with respect for the whole person, including the individual's personal beliefs. Thanks for listening.

Friday, September 2, 2011

Agreeing with Dawkins and Hitch

So often when I've been in the middle of an intense discussion, otherwise known as an argument, I've known the frustration that goes with not being able to make the other person see where I'm coming from, or to hear them admit that maybe, just maybe, I might have a point too.  So, in the true Christian spirit of treating others the way I would want to be treated I sincerely ask the question, where are the new atheists coming from, what is their point? I have enough of a background in the humanities to have observed that often artistic or intellectual movements are a reaction or response to other ideas or conditions that have gone before. This is also true of atheism historically, that it has often been an intellectual or emotional response to a failed, corrupt, or inadequate religious response. Certainly institutional religion has made plenty of mistakes historically, Christianity included.  I think a lot of people out there need to hear that admission.  I know growing up in the Catholic church, I felt like I was talking to a wall, in a protestant youth group, I felt like I was being suffocated.  There is much in my own background that might have left me running for the religious door. A lot of people have been hurt by institutionalized religion, and there is no failure as a Christian in admitting that Christians are people too, often prone to the same blind spots as everyone else. Blind, unthinking, religion has had and has the potential for much harm.  This is where I agree with the new atheists, that blind unquestioned ideas can and often do have the potential for harm in society.  We need to be free to ask questions and weigh evidences.  We need to be free as individuals to disagree without fear of being persecuted.  The new atheists have much to offer in this reminder. Where I would disagree with Dawkins and Hitchens, is their assumption that they know the answers before they really bother to ask the question, or bother to investigate the claims, where they lump all religious ideas into one caricature stew and where they fail to question their own assumptions.  This is where theirs becomes a blind unthinking atheism, and of this we need to be wary as well, because any idea can become dogmatic, and any ideology can become a corrupt power structure, as atheism has historically been as well.  They refuse to see this, calling the example of modern China or the Soviet Union "state religions," refusing to acknowledge that it was the policy of these "state religions" to eradicate religion, resulting in unspeakable unparallelled bloodshed.  Why, why asks Dawkins, "would an atheist do such a thing," why indeed Richard, because they saw religion as a problem, as do you. If only it were that simple.


Thursday, September 1, 2011

Confessions of a Social Conservative

I remember standing on the grounds of the Canadian Parliament buildings in 2005 as bus load after bus load of people arrived, thousands upon thousands of people to form a clearly multicultural, multi-religious crowd, all there to support the traditional definition of marriage and to say no to same-sex marriage.  I had arrived late, alone, and was standing near the back, listening to the speeches and watching curiously as the event unfolded.  People carried signs saying "one man one woman," and "I need a father and mother."  I stood there with my arms crossed. I had read or heard what seemed to me to be a few too many anti-Christian comments and I was angry. To my left not far behind me was, relatively speaking, a tiny rag tag group of people stood in a circle. One young man had a sticker on his knapsack that said "Lord, save us from your followers."  Another held a drum, they stood there and then began to chant in unison with their drum, repeating over and over, "stop the hate."  I turned to look at them, shocked at what they were saying, "What?!" I'm sure I must have mouthed the question and stared at them with disbelief.  Is that what they thought?

The next day the papers showed a handful of counter-protestors, and ignored the mass of people. Some time later same sex marriage became legal in Canada.  The definition of marriage was also changed to accommodate same sex unions.  My memory is that it was put through right before Canada Day which left me in a very un-celebratory  mood.  More than that, it left me feeling very angry at the society that I found myself living in.  For several years I wrestled with this intense deep seething rage and I did not know why.  Why did I feel this way?  I did not want to feel this way, and yet I did. Did I secretly hate homosexuals and not realize it?  No, why would I do that, I asked myself.  So why did I feel so much anger?

I grew up in a small town in northern Nova Scotia, the youngest of four children born into a working class family.  In short, my upbringing was a mess, my mother came and went more times than I can remember, and when she was there she made my life a living hell.  By the time I was seven, I would dream that maybe someday my parents would get divorced. I had heard that this happened sometimes and things got better. They finally did get divorced when I was in university, to make a long story short, but nothing was ever settled and my mother continued to come and go. My father died when I was 21 and my mother came back the day after his funeral, told myself and my sister that my father was dead, that it was my fault but that I could do things her way now or I could get out.  I remember seeing involuntary thoughts flash in my mind, what I would do if I had a gun.  I wouldn't know what to do with a gun.  I called my best friend and she came and got me.

I tried for ten years after that to make peace with my family and came to the conclusion that I had to think of my own well being.  I came to this realization after having my first children, preemie colicky refluxy twins that  needed and deserved all of my energy. I knew then that I would have to have my head screwed on straight to take care of them, and so I have been estranged from most of my surviving immediate family since that decision. A short time before this, when the same-sex issue was heating up in Canada, I was newly married, had achieved a bit of personal happiness after a very long difficult road and I was angry because I felt like society was again pointing it's long finger at me, you're bad, just as I had been told every day of my life. I realized that was why this issue was so personal for me, and why it had brought up so much emotion. Yes I believed in the traditional family, but not as someone who wanted to build a picket fence around myself, but as someone who knew what it was like to struggle against not having a family, not having support.  And that is why I also identified with that little rag tag group of people, outside that mass of people, and that set me up for a heck of a personal conflict.

This many years later, I'm still trying to sort all this out, but can I tell you, that those people carrying signs that day do not hate homosexuals.  They believe in the traditional family.  Can anyone see the difference?  It's not who they are against, it's what they are for, and the perceptual differences on this issue continue to divide, with both groups failing to understand where the other is coming from.

I was asking myself today if same sex marriage were put to a vote today, how would I vote?  I think if it were laid out as a civil matter, allowing religious institutions the right to decline, I'd be okay with it.  I say that while thinking of my neighbors, past and present, gay couples who are raising children, and I think, why wouldn't I support them? I don't know, maybe I'm wrong, I struggle with those thoughts too.

May I just end by saying, I remember a number of years back I was with a couple of friends and we were discussing music.  One friend commented to the other friend about what in his opinion was the greatest rock and roll album ever!  The other friend responded, oh, oh that, -it was out of tune. I remember watching the first friend's body language after hearing that comment, that the greatest rock and roll album ever was out of tune, as he motioned and his facial expressions indicated that he was ready to hit the second friend.  Friends, when someone attacks something that is near and dear to our heart our instinct is to lash out.  That is not a religious quality, a Christian quality, a secular quality, that is a human quality.  I just ask that we try to remember that when we hear angry comments from the other side of the political fence.  A professional counselor one told me that anger is just the tip of the iceberg, it's everything else underneath the water that tells a story.







Who's right is it anyway?

There's a growing divide in our culture between left and right, Christian and secular.  As for me, I'm trying to find common ground ground where I can.  I really hope to avoid descending into good guy/bad guy talk.  If you find me talking like that feel free to let me know. We all need accountability, myself included. I would like to take a look at some of the most divisive issues and try to shed light where I can.  Not that I have all the answers by any means because I certainly don't.

One issue that has weighed on my heart a lot, and I do mean a lot, I cannot say that strongly enough, is the very public divide between homosexual rights advocates and traditional family advocates.  This is a very complex issue and where I get confused personally is how to sort all this out at a government services level, so I'll save that discussion for later.

Something I do wish to clarify however, is this popular assumption that to disagree with homosexuality as a lifestyle choice is no different than actively promoting hatred of homosexuals as people.  (Big sigh). I think the Bible is very clear. I also think church tradition (not to mention the design of nature) makes it very clear that homosexuality is not how God designed us to be in relationship.  Church teaching has always been, celibacy in singleness, fidelity in marriage between one man and one woman.  This has never changed, to my knowledge this has never been an issue in the church until recent times. I find it interesting that all major religions (correct me if I'm wrong) agree on this point. I'll let other faith groups speak for themselves, though
as a Christian I feel the need to say, there is a huge difference between disagreeing with a behavior and hating the individual that does that behavior.  Love the sinner, hate the sin, is the old adage.  You love the person because you recognize that everyone is a person created in the image of God, God's child that God loves and knows personally.  You recognize the intrinsic worth of the individual as a unique soul with a unique spirit.  You hate the sin, because you know that the sin (in all of us) is what separates us from God, is what harms the relationship.  Perhaps this is easier to understand in human terms. You love the person who commits adultery, you hate adultery because you know it is the vice that has done so much damage to the person's relationship with their spouse and possible children.  Does that make sense?  I do not hate shoplifters, people who commit adultery, people who lie (and we all have, so pretty soon I'd have to include myself here), so can you believe me when I say sincerely that I do not hate homosexuals?  It grieves me that people seem so readily to jump to this conclusion or to associate the average person of faith with someone who is capable of committing extreme violence, as in the case of Matthew Shepherd, often without even bothering to check that people who abuse homosexuals are even from a Christian or other religious background. I have to ask the person who disagrees with me on this point, do you hate everyone that you disagree with? Do you hate everyone who does something that you think is wrong?  As a Christian I can assure you that I am held to a higher standard than that. The words of Christ are etched in my mind," love your enemies, do good to those who persecute you."  So often I have reflected about how impossible that standard is.  How do you love the person that is about to make you lunch for a lion? How do you bless the person that is about to tie you to a stake, or worse, a wagon wheel or a cross?  Only through prayer and a relationship with a holy God, is my humble conclusion, because I can't do it. But for the record I have no trouble loving someone who struggles with same sex attraction, perhaps because I see many of my own struggles in this larger issue.  Many of us, including myself, know how it feels to feel marginalized, to feel excluded, to suffer through broken relationships, and so often I feel compassion for the gay community, in fact, I identify with them.

Having said that, I think I understand where the failure to understand each other is coming from. To the gay community, who see their sexual preferences as intrinsic to their identity, it must be very hard to separate the behavior from the person, or to understand that to a Christian, the behavior and the worth of the person are separate.  So when a Christian says that they disagree with homosexual behavior, the gay community hears that they cannot accept them as people.  It's a perceptual difference that needs to be clarified.  For the record, I have personally never heard anything said against homosexuals in a church service.  In fact, I've very rarely heard the issue addressed at all.

I know this issue is also an issue in the church at this time.  I know some people would say that they disagree with my interpretation.  (Sigh).  To them may I just say that I have stared this issue down (not once) in the middle of the night and I cannot go where you are going.  I am sorry.  I think it may be becoming obvious that there may be many church splits on this issue, and to that I say, let it be.  Some things you can't compromise on, namely the authority of the Bible and church tradition, because on this authority and this tradition, and the accuracy of such, rests our faith. If we pick and choose what we want to uphold, what's next, the divinity of Jesus, the physicality of the resurrection?  Am I correct in observing that it is the same denominations that I see questioning the church on this issue, that I also hear asking bigger questions, questioning foundations with far reaching implications for the future of the Christian faith, that Jesus and the early church died defending? But let me re-assert that the Christian message that is offered to everyone, is that God loves people so much that he gave his only son to die for our sins, knowing that we could not do it on our own.  This I'm sure all Christians can agree on. For some people it's same sex attraction that is a weakness, for some people it's alcohol, other addictions, and no I don't think that homosexuality is all that different from any other sin.  God offers redemption to everyone who would receive it, unconditionally. God replaces the rules with a relationship with himself and with others and commands us to love one another. None of us are there yet, we're all in process, but in no way does Christianity teach hatred.  In no way are people like Fred Phelps representative of the true Christian message to love your neighbor as yourself.     

So where am I going with this?  It's such a complex issue, but the point I am leading to, is that contained in this issue are two rights groups.  The rights of homosexuals as well as the rights of religious minorities.  Even when same-sex marriage became law in Canada, and with it the said protection of religious minorities within that change of definition, I have never (let me think, nope never) seen a unbiased treatment of this issue with respect to both groups in the secular or public media.  Any interview that I have heard, including with the CBC which is supposed to be representative of the interests of all Canadians has failed to fairly represent where conservative religious groups are coming from on this issue.  Misrepresentation, distortion, attacking questions seem to be the tone of any discussion I have heard.  Fred Phelps seems to find ample coverage, but I have never seen a minister given the opportunity to clearly express or discuss this issue, without the interviewer clearly showing bias against what they have to say.  I fear that this cultural bias could be leading to hatred and discrimination against religious minorities.

All I am asking is that people try to keep in mind that there are two rights groups here.  We need to be concerned about the rights of homosexuals as a society.  We also need to be concerned with the rights of religious minorities as a society.  Do vegetarians have the right to say that they think eating animals is wrong?  Do Jehovah's witnesses have a right to decline a blood transfusion? Do Quakers have the right to refuse to go to war? Do religious minorities have the right to say, even to think, that homosexual behavior is wrong?  Do they?  I'm not so sure they do anymore.  And I think what we fail to realize, is that what may be being lost in this culture, ironically in the name of "tolerance" is freedom of conscience, and that is a great loss indeed.

So where do we go from here?  Like I said at the beginning, I don't have all the answers.  I know in Canada where I'm from, this issue has largely been settled, at least from the perspective of the law and the charter of human rights.  I'm not a lawyer, and I don't pretend to understand the intricacies of the law and how it works, but I do see clashes of rights on this issue appearing in the courts.  How do we solve those clashes when you have a collision of rights groups?  That's again where I get confused, but something that I've learned in my own experience is that often what is deemed appropriate comes down to asking who's space is it?  The old saying, when in Rome...so to the person who would demand from a Christian adoption agency that they adopt to gay couples or the Salvation Army that is forced to close because they cannot sign a form outlining a politically correct version of what "equality" means, may I ask, can I therefore go to a gay organization and demand to change their mission statement to comply with religious "equality?"  It's a fair question isn't it? Not that I would demand that, because I respect that that's their space.  But is it not fair for me to ask, when are gay rights organizations going to begin to respect the religious rights of religious organizations and their right to disagree? And to be fair, should we as Christians, where the battle for same sex marriage and benefits is still raging, let it go, in the name of loving our neighbor, so that they will know that we support their right to be seen as equal people before the law?  Now some people would say that I'm betraying my own principles in saying that, because I believe that the traditional family is a great need in society, but then I don't need anyone else to tell me that, including the state. My kingdom is not of this world. Thanks for listening.