Not Less of a Person

Here's what I've been trying to get at in my other posts on homosexuality, distilled: Someone doing something you feel is wrong or immoral does not make them less of a person.

It occurred to me today that that's what I've been really trying to say. Last night, on Project Runway, one of the designers came out as HIV+, a secret he's been hiding for 10 years because he was afraid of what the reaction would be. His mother knows he's gay, and told him to hide it from his father. She had not, at that point, known about the HIV status. (I'm gonna assume she and the rest of his family know now, because they've been watching the show.)

He's had to deal with the HIV+ status without any support from his family, because his family would not be able to deal with the fact that he's gay, because it's against their morals. Think about that for a bit.

What if you woke up one morning and realized that, yes, you have a problem with alcohol... but you can't tell anyone, because that would mean admitting you were drinking in the first place, and the people you love most in the world, who should love you unconditionally, think that drinking is wrong (and there are a lot of Christians who do), and have shown evidence that they may not love you unconditionally after all. You worry that if you admitted you were a drinker, they would cease to love and support you. That they would see you as inherently flawed, and that it would change how they see you as a person. You would no longer be "my child", but "my alcoholic child". You would be the label, not the person anymore.

Love should not work that way.

But for people who are gay, it all too often does. I will say it again: most Christians do not turn people out of their churches and their hearts for adultery or drinking or lying. They show willingness to accept those flaws, to accept that people are flawed, but that they're still people. "He's a great guy, this is just something we all have to deal with," they say, when their pastor admits to adultery. But that doesn't happen very often for gays. They're seen as something so inherently flawed that they don't deserve that consideration anymore. "Gays aren't welcome in our church. Murderers and thiefs and adulterers and drunkards, sure, but not gays."

And that's the tragedy. The tragedy is a man who for ten years, has known he has a medical condition that could easily shorten his lifespan, that we still don't know how to effectively treat and that in any event can get very expensive to treat, and who has been living in terror that he will no longer be able to count on the support of the people he loves if he admits this. That he will no longer be the person, just the label.

The tragedy is that people think that that's acceptable.

It's not.

ETA: This seems like a good post to link to the It Gets Better Project.

Only Human

"There is none righteous, no, not one."—Romans 3:10

"For all have sinned, and fall short of the glory of God."—Romans 3:23

One thing I find interesting about how people view religion and faith is how the same thing can lead to such wildly different conclusions. For instance, one or both of those quotes above, or the summary of them, is frequently cited by people as a reason they have issues with Christianity. Yet, for me, they're one of the things that form the bedrock of my belief.

What I like about Jesuits

I would make a horrible Catholic. I don't agree with many of the Church's positions and teachings, and I don't think I ever could. There are things about the Catholic church I like, and I find some of their ceremonies and rituals beautiful, but they just aren't for me.

But I've always had a soft spot for Jesuits.

God's not the inflexible one

Via Sadly, No!, I was linked to a post basically complaining about the word homophobia and how it's all wrong because Christians don't fear homosexuals, they just... something. I'm not clear on what the "something" is because the article being discussed is really poorly written. I'm not going to get into the debate on the word here because that would distract from my main point, which was brought up in the commentary to the Sadly, No! post, wherein several people highlighted this quote from the original article:

We trust the God who cannot lie, not to change his mind and give us a whole new set of rules just because the times they are a changing. In fact it is God's promise that he will not change his edicts, statutes, restrictions or commands that assure us, even though the world is in a great storm; God is always an immovable rock.

Christianity and Politics

One of the things I've increasingly noticed of late is the way that so many people assume that you cannot possibly be both Christian and centrist-to-left politically. This seems to be particularly true when it comes to online comments on news stories, blog posts, and other "new media". I find it uncomfortable to participate in many moderate-to-left blog comments because of that perception. (I'm very unlikely to participate in the more conservative ones; I've yet to find a really conservative blogger I can tolerate.)

I'm not sure what else I want to say here. I could make a list of things that not all Christians believe, and get into why some of them do support some of the more moderate or liberal views, such as keeping abortion legal (even if possibly with restrictions), same-sex marriage equality, ceasing to use torture under any circumstances, health care reform, and probably half a dozen other things. I could point to my theories on how evolution and creation can maybe be reconciled, and note that I'm not alone in feeling that way... or point out that there are scientists who do have a faith, some of whom are Christian. I could note that some Christians wince at Young Earth Creationists. I could show examples of interfaith discussions, ones that show respect for non-Christian beliefs and not incidentally serve as statements that not all Christians are knee-jerkingly against Muslims.

I don't know if it would do any good. The far-right Christians (and the outright wingnuts who are also Christian) have some pretty loud voices. And right now, political arguments in the U.S. are running pretty hot, with a lot of people who are fed up or scared or just plain hostile to anyone who doesn't agree with them 100%. I'm not sure anyone's really listening much right now, and that's kinda scary, and really saddening.

Insert Title Here

I haven't been doing much writing of any kind, but I've still got a few things in the "to be posted" folder, so I probably should post one of them. *rummages through folder* Ahh, here we go: the perfect post for right before I go read the latest critical post over on slacktivist.