An open letter to the non-allies in my life

Again, my posts are few and far between. But this one opens with an image!

Today I wanted to re-post this Colbert quote on Facebook (with some commentary):

But I didn't, for the same reason I don't post much potentially controversial stuff to Facebook. I feared that regardless of what commentary I added, it would be taken as simply an attack or a dismissal, and ignored. What I actually want is to gently prod and perhaps give an opening for discussion to those for whom it is most relevant. And yes, that's mainly you, Mom and Dad, but to varying degrees my brothers, college friends, and people from my hometown. So I remembered that I had this blog, and decided that it would be an excellent medium for further commentary, since it's longer-form, and is more of a read-at-will thing and less in-your-face than just a Facebook post.

So for starters, the quote in text form, since image macros are kind of obnoxious. Steven Colbert to Neil Patrick Harris, openly gay actor/singer/dancer with a husband and two adorable kids:

You are also the biggest threat of all: you're a gay person I like. Your threat is that you make being gay not seem threatening. It's almost as if your happiness does not take my happiness away.

The reason this quote was so striking to me is that it very closely resembles remarks that I have personally heard on multiple occasions. There are two specifically that come to mind. One is the general unhappiness about Glee featuring gay characters, which I wrote about (in a less discussable and more exasperated form) two years ago.

But more pointedly, it reminds me of what my parents told me when I was planning on living in an apartment with Aaron, a gay floormate, my junior year of college. I distinctly remember being told (hedged and perhaps hesitantly, but clearly) that living with a gay person would cloud my judgement, that it would make it harder to separate the sinner from the sin, that it would make me more accepting of that lifestyle. Which is pretty much exactly what Colbert is poking at here. At the time, I was already pretty skeptical of Christianity's opposition to homosexuality, and I may have even rebutted with something like, "You mean it makes gay people seem like people?". But here we are, four years later, and I still told my parents they didn't have to come to my most recent PGMC concert because it was explicitly about being gay, and they were uncomfortable with parts of the Christmas concert.

And guess I wish I had more to say here. I can't really say much, because I can't argue with religion-based convictions that leave no room for compromise. As long as it comes down to "scripture says" and differing interpretations are precluded from the start, I can't really add anything to the discussion.

But if you're someone who knows and cares about me, even if that's despite my liberal views, I suppose I would just say this: this "issue" of homosexuality isn't just a theological precept for me. It's an operative, life-based conviction. In the past few years, the number of people I know and love that are gay and other shades of queer has only grown, and yes, your fears (and Colbert's mock fears) have come to glorious reality. It has become nothing less than absurd to me to think that Jwo and Ryan's tenth anniversary should be less worthy of celebrating just because they're both men. And it is disturbing and hurtful to me that people close to me oppose such unions. Especially when their reasons, one way or another, come down to a particular interpretation of words that were written over two thousand years ago.

I know I can't really say anything, especially in a blog post, to budge most people's convictions. But at least know that my status as an ally of and advocate for those who are gay is not because I just swallow up whatever the liberals tell me, or because I feel the need to rebel against my upbringing, or because I no longer value my faith. My advocacy is a direct result of getting to know a wide variety of gay people - as well as many loving, frighteningly intelligent people who are also allies - and finding that gay people are people who want to be able to have their love and relationships recognized and accepted and celebrated, just like the rest of us.

And I know there may be all kinds of defensive reasons you have that they're different, but I'm pretty sure I've heard them all at this point, and I'd love to discuss any one of them with you. Because I've unvaryingly found that when you realize that gay people are sincere, loving, unassuming people like you and I, those reasons end up falling far short of justifying any non-trivial distinction between gay relationships from straight ones. And when those reasons are used to exclude, dismiss, fire, shame, suppress, or simply ignore people that I love, it hurts. Especially when those doing the excluding are also people I love. So I'd be glad to talk more about all of this with any of you, because I truly believe that, even within your faith and your politics, there is no reason you should have to continue standing against the people that I know and love.

Additional note: The thing I desperately do not want is for comments here to be used to try to argue or convince. I will perhaps try to clarify and offer my perspective (as per the last paragraph), but I firmly believe that disproving or changing minds solely via comments is futile.

The audacity of the homosexual lifestyle

Recently, one of my friends posted a link to an an article about a fairly typical Christian response to the growing prevalence of homosexuality in our culture, especially television, which is seen as an assault on good Christian heternormativity. When posted on Facebook, my friends were surprised by it. I was not. In fact, when I heard that there were openly gay characters on Glee that were being portrayed as (of all things) normal, the first thing I thought of was of the condemnation that Christians would undoubtedly heap upon it. This, in long, is, as best as I can tell from years of observation, why:

If you know that the gays are not only openly and boldly sinning (or at least misguided, see: Glee), but doing their best to convince, or even worse subtly suggest (again, see: Glee) to poor children suffering from same-sex attraction that their feelings are not evil, sinful, and unhealthy, as God and you well know (and as God lays out in thousands of verses...oh wait, that's loving your fellow humans and caring for the poor).

These gays, and their evil depraved liberal compatriots are trying to push onto their young, impressionable minds that it's not only okay, but perhaps even something to be celebrated and embraced. They're trying to take this depravity and ickiness and turn it into something...acceptable. And you can't have that, because then these children might go as far as to not believe that they are depraved and sinful, and refuse to go to the psychological manhandling that is ex-gay camp, and turn out to be normal, healthy, well-adjusted homosexuals. And if too many kids end up doing that, instead of being repressed, shamed, and pushed to the margins of society, then what will happen to the examples to point to to prove your point?

What of those who have destroyed families by coming to terms with their repressed sexuality halfway through a false marriage? What of the youth who are having sex without guidelines, because they are already completely outside of their rigid Christian morality anyway? We can't have all these Neil Patrick Harrises prancing around. If everyone ends up appearing normal by all appearances, and even good, even decent faithful Christian God-fearing homosexuals, who will you point to to demonstrate the depravity? How will you preserve the holy heteronormativity?

What examples will you use to paint these individuals as outside of God's ideal with a wide brush, like singles, and women, and blacks? Or not the last one any more...Christianity has figured that one out. Get with the program. And women are mostly okay these days, as long as they don't get to heady about it, and depending on who you ask.

You can't.

And that's the problem.

It may just be that I have spent too much time trying to deny to myself that these viewpoints exist and are widespread, only to be proved wrong, time and time again. But I was not surprised by this. Not in the least. Dismayed? Re-disappointed? Annoyed? Yes. But not surprised.

And I know many people who fall within my wide caricature here, including my own family (hi, Dad!) and friends. And I am well aware that not every Christian who is against homosexuality believes all of this. I know that I am myself painting a wide brush, and being overly general and vindictive. Which is because all of this sounds pretty ridiculous to me and you, but if you insert at the base of it a solid, sincere, God-fearing, honest-to-goodness conviction that homosexuality is evil, not God's intention, a perversion of humanity by the world, and all of this is just the devil, speaking to me, the producers of Glee, directly or indirectly by the liberal establishment, the media, and shows like Glee, most of it makes sense. And I almost understand that, in my rational mind. But the way I put it , it sounds ugly and crazy, because if you don't have that conviction, it is ugly. Ugly, petty, and wrong.

I don't have that conviction.

And I don't think there is anything - not in the Bible, not in rhetoric, not in my family, not in pity or prayer - that will change that.

The wonderful (and heck, the so-so, if there are any) gay people that I know and love, who have struggled with Christianity, struggled with their families, their community, and themsevles, and ultimately concluded that there is nothing broken within them, that it is the world and their religion that is broken, are a testimony. A frighteningly unassailable testimony. And it'll take more than fearmongering and prooftexting to change that.

Many of those (my father) who I think of most when I go off like this are wonderful people. Sincere, God-fearing, loving, beautiful people. And they don't necessarily campaign against homosexuality. My parents, and 67% of my home county, voted against it. And flinch at, and probably comment on, the pervasive homosexuality (and therefore immorality) in television, the media, and the world. The motivation for their beliefs and actions are rooted in a deep love for, conviction from, and belief in God. And to them, the above is biased and inflammatory, but under all the rhetoric, necessary and true. I think. Because you, I, Seattle, liberals, are decieved by this culture, by shows like Glee, by the world, by Satan himself, perhaps. God is looking down on us, shaking his head sadly, because we are being decieved by moral relativism, and we don't even know it.

Much like, to me, the religious right is holding to "tradition" when it needs to be reconsidered. Subscribing to rules when it is justice and people that need to be seen and considered. And being tricked into holding to lines and pillars of tradition, because they are safer and easier than progress. And God is looking down on them, shaking his head sadly, because they are being decieved into excluding and casting out his beloved, and they don't even know it.

That's the world I live in. It's messy, the lines I've painted are anything but firm or entirely fair, and I don't know what to do with it all the time.

So this?

This did not surprise me.