For a Christian and a potential political science undergraduate, i’d say i’m unusually ambivalent on all the major politico-religious issues out there. In a way it’s because i don’t want to settle on a stand before i’m wiser or learned enough.
But as an observer to The Homosexual Issue for more than ten years since i’ve coherently given the topic serious thought, i’ve finally come to conclusion: that everyone should mind their own business and stop asserting their personal beliefs on others.
Being in an IJ school at an impressionable age granted me a very strange, albeit interesting outlook. Firstly, of course, the strong Catholic influence at a young age planted a natural tendency to see homosexuality as ‘unnatural’. At the same time, it was a girls’ school, and an IJ one at that. That combination led organically to a hotbed of lesbians. Yes, at age 9 I bore witness to girls making out in dark alleyways while roaming around innocently eating curry puffs after school. So while ‘unnatural’, homosexuality also became – sort of – a norm!? A quarter of my school went through that whole homosexual experimental phase.
My take on it then was that homosexuality was constructed, and that people can’t possibly be born with it. This was derived partly from my own heterosexual orientation, the observable microcosm of society I had with its instances of sapphism, and what was taught to me religiously. It was just a personal opinion that I’ve never endeavored to solidify, but it remained my stance for years.
But over the years I’ve got to know people – sensible, real people, who are homosexual. There are plenty at my age – I suspect – who are still confused, still experimenting; but there are those who are undeniably homosexual; born – naturally and without the ability to change their predilection – to love the same gender. And once I was sure of that, there was no argument – they deserve every right heterosexual couples are given.
While I believe in God, I also believe in homosexuals. I don’t see the two as mutually exclusive. There are too many cogent arguments in support of gay marriages that do not contend or contradict with biblical beliefs, I don’t have to offer any more of them. What I do know is this: love is love is love. And if I love someone, there is no reason why I should be in any way condemned or disadvantaged.
In no way should I superficially be accepted but obviously categorized as ‘abnormal’, which I think is what is happening locally. The general political consensus right now is that homosexuals are allowed to lead their lives ‘freely’ and pursue their social activities, but within limits – in particular, they are not to ‘promote’ their homosexual ‘lifestyle’. I have never felt like homosexuals are in any way ‘promoting’ their choice. The reason why there is a pro-homosexual voice in society now is because they are rigorously restricted (a blatant message to society that what they’re born to be should not be accepted) and as ANY person indignantly oppressed for being who they naturally are, they make noise.
Homosexuals do not ‘promote’ their lifestyles. Heterosexuals do. We actively promote the ‘conventional’ family unit of father, mother, children – to the extent of forbidding any exception. Homosexuals are not asking others to be homosexual, all they are asking is for a right for them to be it. TO BE THEMSELVES. Which in my opinion is a very admirable non-intrusive attitude we should all adopt. Basically, the more intense the attempt to shelf this ‘lifestyle’, the louder they will get.
I do understand why a heterosexual will see homosexuality as abnormal and unnatural. Because, to be honest, I do too. I mean, obviously, if I loathe olives and can never see myself enjoying them, I can never understand how another can. It might seem disgusting to me. But in the same way, homosexuals cannot understand the sexual appeal of the opposite sex. To them, heterosexuality is unnatural. And if they truly feel this way, I cannot – in all logical sensibilities – tell them that they are wrong. It is a bloody tendency they are just… BORN with.
All I did was imagine myself as a heterosexual born in a homosexual world, with all the existing prejudices homosexuals are subjected to reversed and imposed on me – and it just made complete sense for us to stop. Stop making them so miserable for just.. being. It’s wrong. It’s bullying a black kid for being in a predominantly white playground. It’s morally wrong:
Making someone pay for having done NOTHING that harms or would harm another is morally wrong.
The one creed I wholeheartedly believe in is to love everyone and not to do harm on another. Legalizing homosexual marriage, as far as I can imagine, will do actual harm to NO ONE. Retaining 377A will, in one sweeping motion, disallow an entire group of people – many of which good and honest – from doing what the Christian God teaches one to: love.
The problem, I think, is that many people are still incapable of seeing homosexuals not as homosexuals but as people – which they are: before anything else, they are men and women. They are just.. us. With different preferences. If we think of them as people who want to love another, it seems counterintuitive to prevent them from. It’s this arbitrary distinction we’ve made between homosexuals and heterosexuals that makes it so difficult to see them as people with the right to want what they naturally want, and makes it difficult for us to understand that all homosexuality means is a different preference.
Like I’ve said before, I was pretty much ambivalent/apathetic about the whole issue, and had assumed that most people were tolerant, if not accepting. But a pretty horrifying number of people, I’ve discovered on the internet today, are just pure NASTY about homosexuality without the grounds to be so. Not only are their comments crude, they are out to hurt. About homosexuals being a disappointment to their parents (punctuated with smug, evil little smiley faces), and something about filthy shit sex or wtv.
And I was just like dude. You just. don’t. say that. To homosexuals or ANYONE unless they raped someone’s child and dumped the body in a lake. So far, anti-gays have not given me a single cogent, convincing argument that hasn’t been properly debunked by the opposite camp. All I’m getting is a bunch of insensitive, unfounded assaults that make the homosexual cause seem very, very much worth fighting for to me.
So yes, I guess after 10 years of observation I’ve made my conclusion and I do wish it hadn’t been such an easy one because the way in which heterosexuals are damning homosexuals almost makes me ashamed to be a heterosexual.
That is about all.
Leave a reply to Justin Cancel reply