You really want to be my facebook friend? Here ya go...

Hi (potential fb friend),

How cool are you?  On facebook, no less!  I got your friend request, and you should know that I share some pretty controversial topics and articles, mostly in the hope that it will stretch some minds and hearts.  I'm very gay-affirming, as I realized when Ray disclosed that he was gay that he didn't choose that.  He was born with the unique make-up that God gave him, and although he tried his best, it never changed or went away. 

Ray and I were stuck with a very difficult choice to face that fact, and I know that no amount of prayer or effort would ever make him straight.  He has always lived a good life, and he was a good husband and dad.  I have nothing against him AT ALL.  Although it has brought great pain to my life, I know that God orchestrated our lives, not any choice that Ray made. 

If that is okay with you, I will be glad to add you as a friend.  It's not open for dispute, just so you know how I feel.  Still want to add me? 

hugs,
Carol

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

Facebook opinions

Facebook is a dangerous place for opinions. I was recently made aware of a long comment stream. I wanted so badly to post my thoughts, but instead I decided to rant here instead.

When friends start blowing off their type-written remarks, it can come across mean and hateful - which, no doubt, it is. So, here I'm going to respond - and if by chance some of my facebook "friends," come across it, at least I put it on my own blog, not someone else's page. When the shouting got all high and mighty, here was what I ALMOST posted this:

I just heard of this diatribe, and I have to throw my hat in with the love that God has for us all - and by that I DON'T mean that I just want to warn people of Hell. I mean that I support and affirm loving relationships of gay and straight people. I stand as a Christian that Christ sees NO DIFFERENCE in any of us in regards to sexual orientation. I'm offended that some would call this a choice - as when did you self-righteous straight people decide one day to be straight? For the girls, I bet it was about in kindergarten, when you started chasing the little boys on the playground - maybe sooner. And for the boys, about the same time. Only thing is that for some of the boys and girls, they were chasing, even at that young, innocent age, kids of their same gender. Who among you are casting stones at that child - and later, the young adult? Are you really sure you want to compare same-sex love and attraction to murder and theft? How dare you? I only wish you would put yourselve

and there I ran out of space for a comment. If I went on, I'd have to hit "send," and then go on, and it was then that I quit.

I have talked personally to one of the women and expressed WHY I feel that being gay is NOT a choice. I have tried to personally let her know that if anyone should be off-put by a gay former husband, it would be ME. But I let her know personally, that I can't believe anyone would choose to be turned away by the church, turn their back on a fruitful career, say good-bye to family (and a wife) who, at the least, that person was best friends with. In the face-to-face conversation, I let her know that I felt it was more important to love, forgive, and see truth, rather than stick to what I'd been taught in church. Huh. You'd have thought (or I would) that this woman would give consideration to it personally, but I see that she likens being gay to murder and theft, and reckons being gay to simply who you decide to have sex with.

Ranting is not my speciality, and I'm not one to intentionally tick off friends of the community. But when I saw this woman's name with untrue and dogmatic comments, with no sympathy, and not one bit of effort to see life from a gay person's point of view, the LEAST I could do was rant HERE.

So as I cooled off and wrote this, I went back and changed what I wrote. I'm not sure what will come of it, but here is the comment I left:

Would anyone who holds the religious literalist point of view like to talk to someone who actually KNOWS how hurtful the church is to gay people? Have any of you tried to understand the pain that gay people go through when after years of prayer, they still hear from their church that they are likened to murderers, thieves, to sex-addicts and pedophiles? Would one of you who don't consider me "saved" like to discuss how this has affected my own life? Not on fb, but over coffee at my house? I'm not looking for offense, but for understanding. For those who are gay, for those who are straight, I fear that literalism and dogmatic diatribes will only make us further apart. I stand for Christ, and I stand for love.