letter to...

Still "doing the facebook thing," I got involved with a note/comment thread. Perhaps you can access it here

When a friend of a friend got personal, I decided to write my comment, and since the spaces are only so big, I needed to post it somewhere else. Where else? My blog. :) Here is the comment she wrote, with full knowledge that I had already commented on the feed.

She wrote: Would you really fight so hard about this if Ray were not gay and you didn't have the need to reconcile this with Christian teachings? God gives us choices and maybe he gives us tendencies. I tend to want to eat and watch TV for eternity, but I choose not to do that because it is not the best thing for my life and my family's. And don't tell me this is not a parallel to homosexuality. Does God make murderers, adulterers, liars? Did God make Judas? I feel like Dobson, I can't fight any more.* I can't change anyone. I love you all, and hope we will all see each other in Eternity.

*note here that that link was the topic on the facebook note where this occurred. I added it here,

Below is my response, omitting her name.

Hi (person on facebook, who wrote the comment above, and I had to reply)

Well I'm taking the bait to write a reply...

Your question is would I be fighting so hard for this if Ray weren't gay, and if I weren't trying to justify it.

Answer: No. That's because I would never have believed anyone else. I know Ray, and I know what it was like in our family. I had two friends who came out to me prior to that, and they both responded differently. One stayed with her husband, who had also had affairs with other women. Ten years later they are still together, and they told me they don't talk about it much. One of their daughters is gay, and she has trouble reconciling it, too.

Another friend of mine has partnered with her girlfriend, and they have been together 13 years. At first I didn't understand, and yet I loved my friend. I wrote her a letter and I basically said, "I don't understand, but you are my friend, and I love you." When Ray came out to me, she was the one I went to, crying on her shoulder, and she was shocked but was a great comfort to me. She calls me her "oldest and dearest friend," when she introduces me, because all our other friends abandoned her.

But with neither of these friends did I understand, until it happened in MY family, to ME, and being gay was part of the life of someone I know and love.

I would make more sense if I DID NOT accept and understand what it's like to be gay. I could be bitter because I was lied to. I could hate Ray because he left me. I could pitch a fit for all kinds of reasons - but I have c h o s e n not to. (I spaced that out because there is no italics on fb)

I could also be hateful because people won't simply listen to those who are gay, and give them the benefit of the doubt that it's THEM who live it - that they don't choose it any more than the natural color of one's hair or how tall they are or which hand they prefer to write with.

So I DO speak up for them and I will speak up for them and I'm going to keep on saying over and over and over and over: Listen to gay people. They are every bit as worthy as straights. There is NO difference in them as any of the rest of us. They deserve equal rights. They deserve to be accepted and loved and admired, honored, treated with dignity.

They don't deserve to be compared with those who willingly commit crimes or acts of violence. It is NOT comparable to murder, thievery, adultery, gluttony, or any sin.

I could easily take offense because you assume things about my life, but honestly, I am trying not to. Because this has gotten so long I know it will not fit in a comment section, so I will post it as a note on my wall.

In the beginning of this ordeal, I was embarrassed, afraid someone would find out, ashamed. I no longer feel like that. This is not an easy road I'm walking, and your "love" does not feel like love. It feels like I'm held at arm's length, that you are making an exception with me from being like you simply because I don't agree. And when you say, "I hope we will all see each other in Eternity," it feels like you think one of us won't be there. (Btw, I don't even think that is the main reason we follow Christ, just to get into Heaven. I think there is more to it than that.) I am begging you to listen to gay people, and know they are 100% worthy of the same acceptance that you feel, among others, by God. It's the same.

Please don't read this as if there's an edge to it - I'm doing the best I can since we are not sitting with coffee in a kitchen, understanding the emotions involved. Do you have any more questions about my motives? I will do all I can to answer honestly and, as President Obama recently said, let's do it without reducing one another to caricatures.

Sincerely,
Carol

James Dobson gives up - thank God!

I'd say it is about time for this to happen. James Dobson has declared on his radio program that there is "... utter evil that's coming out of the United States Congress." This is in response to the passage by the House of Representatives of the Matthew Shepard Act.

For any who are not familiar with the recent bill (which recently passed the House, and should soon pass the Senate), it would extend the federal law covering hate crimes to include gay people. It is named for 21-year-old Matthew Shepard, a young man, who in 1998, was tortured, beaten and left to die in a remote area in Wyoming. His offense to the perpetrators was that he was gay.

James Dobson and Focus on the Family has been spreading lies about the nature of this bill since its introduction. By way radio broadcasts and statements, Dobson often led his listeners to rally around on behalf of God in the culture war against acceptance of gay people, among other things (for example, abortion, but I'm not going in to that here).

Now, finally, it appears that there is a change in Dobson's "war." If I am correctly reading the article from U.S. News and World Report, Dobson is giving up, surrendering, throwing in the towel. This is what I have to say about Dobson, "It's about time."

It's about time that Americans stop listening to Dobson's lies about gay people and to think about how their religious rectitude has harmed those whose sexual orientation is in the minority. It's about time that there be protection for the rights of ALL Americans. And it's about time that the Focus on the Family organization get out of politics, and back to honing in on how to accept gay family members, rather than work against them and the bonding relationships that are cherished by ALL of us.

Fortunately there is change happening in America, and we can hope for thinking people of faith to come forward to support things that are truly right.

for further reading:
by Mel White, "Religion Gone Bad: Dangers of the Religious Right."