Religious Freedom

Now, let's just say that homosexual behavior is sinful.

The bill in Arizona protects religious freedom as the freedom "to act or refusal to act in a manner substantially motivated by a religious belief."

This could be used to one of two extents. In the most extreme, someone could say it's their religious right to refuse to serve a gay person at a restaurant. They'd be saying, though, that they're refusing to serve him because this person breaks what they believe to be a Christian law, in other words, because this person is a sinner. But by that logic they also shouldn't serve people who don't keep the Sabbath day holy, who don't love their neighbors as themselves, or, I dunno, every single person besides Jesus who's ever lived because it's a basic Christian belief that we're all sinners.

Jesus never said to make sure you don't sell anything or do business with sinners; he's was more into suggesting that we cool it with any stone-casting.

But I know, there's the other level. Some Christian florists don't want to make flower arrangements for gay weddings. Ditto gay wedding cakes. Ditto photography.

Okay, I get it. They don't want to support a definition of marriage they don't think God recognizes. And I honestly do think that should be anyone's right. I think the market could sort that kind of thing out. They might lose business from a lot of people who find that kind of discrimination offensive, and gay people can go elsewhere for flowers and cake. It kind of makes me wish I owned a gun store because I would be very discriminating in whom I sold those to.

But, forget the political issue.

I just don't know that Jesus would encourage these florists and photographers to deny service to gays. I think of the story of Jesus and the harlot. It's not the same thing, I realize. The gay people aren't coming to the Christians saying, "We're sinners. Please help us." But Jesus was always more into preaching love, compassion, forgiveness, and turning the other cheek.

If they wanted to convince gay people and the world in general, that Christianity is the beautiful and true religion they think it is, then taking every opportunity to show kindness and acceptance would probably serve them best. Jesus ate with the sinners and tax collectors because he thought that's who most needed some Jesus in their lives. So, really, if you followed his example, you might not only bake a cake for a gay couple, you might come to their wedding and break bread with them. How else will you ever get close enough for them to hear the message of The Gospel?

Matthew 7:1-3

Judge not, that ye be not judged.
For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again.
And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?

Why Anderson Cooper Needed to Come Out

Coming out can be wielded like a tool. Anyone who regularly passes (whether on purpose or because some people just have no gaydar) knows this. When you meet someone and they start to like you as a person, you just start slipping in the appropriate pronouns and see how they react. Some people basically pretend not to notice, some say, "Oh, I didn't know you were gay," some people freak out, and others say, "Wow, really? I wouldn't have thought you were a lesbian. You're so... pretty," or some variation on that theme. In the latter lies your best opportunity to whack away a little ignorance.
If the only people you can readily identify as lesbians are the most obvious ones, which let's be honest means the "bull dykes," then the wide variety of lesbians who pass your way will go marked in your head as straight, leaving your mind with the impression that most lesbians are bull dykes.

Those of us who do not fall in line with the culture's stereotypes of our group (whether gay, lesbian, black, Hispanic, etc.) can be great illuminators. Gay people are in the simultaneously better and worse position of not necessarily being immediately identified as gay. This means that we can choose to get to know someone (whether for 30 seconds or 30 years), allowing them to conceive their own opinions of us without the coloring of cultural stereotypes, before outing ourselves.
Perhaps it's a good thing that Cooper didn't talk about his sexuality for a good while. Mothers all across America have fallen in love with this sauve, classy guy, and because mothers have acute denial skills, those who are so inclined have chosen to remain ignorant to the obviousness of Anderson's sexuality.

A lesbian was telling me the other day about how her mother had been shocked and refused to believe it when she told her mother that of course AC was gay, that everyone knew that. Her mother said she was mistaken. This is one of those mothers who are more or less accepting of their children's sexuality in theory, but are against homosexuality on moral grounds and/or when push comes to shove it turns out they don't feel as progressively as they think.
But now Cooper has come out of the closet, and I'd love to hear what the mother has to say. Will she continue watching the show? Is there a new chink in her homophobia from the realization that someone she adores is gay and that his "lifestyle" has not ruined him?

For my mother, this was Clay Aiken. My mother loved Clay Aiken. Clay Aiken was losing to that other dude during the same time in my life that I was starting to come out of the closet to my peers - not to my mother. We watched American Idol together, rooting for our beloved belter as he blew us away with his "Bridge Over Troubled Water."  My mother and I didn't discuss his sexuality, but I watched him closely and thought, "Surely."
A few years later, when I had just come out to my mother during a Christmas break, she was driving me back to college for the spring semester and was listening to Aiken's autobiography on CD in the car. She had been going on and on to me about how much she loved hearing about his life, from his childhood (they're both from North Carolina) through his degree in special education and road to American Idolatry.
I was listening for the secret codes of the gays that would tell me that yes, of course he is. I don't remember all the details, but he started talking about "being different from the other boys" and "being bullied by the other boys for not being 'manly enough'" etc. After enough of these, I finally said, "Mom, you know what's funny about how much you love Clay Aiken?"
"What?"
"You know he's gay, right?"

She wouldn't listen to reason that day, but of course he eventually came out outright.
Has it helped my mother to evolve on the issue? Maybe a little. In conjunction with a number of other gay people she's met and been impressed with. Maybe little by little she's coming around. I just hope it's in time for the day I ask her to meet a woman I want to spend the rest of my life with.
So pass. Do it until they like you, then make sure to let them know that this wonderful, unique, smart, funny, attractive, interesting and talented person in front of them is, indeed, a gay.

Breaking the Cycle

I called my mother today to ask her about the bit of Native American heritage I have since I've been reading this awesome book Love Medicine and am now hoping for as much Native American heritage as possible.  My mom started talking about another book on compulsions--I have OCD--by a "psychiatrist" named Martha Nibley Beck who's apparently been on Oprah a few times. I put psychiatrist in quotes because upon further research I learned that my mother is once again calling anyone in a field related to mental health a psychiatrist when Beck is in fact a sociologist and therapist.

Mother'd heard of this book through one of the members of the anonymous pornography addicts group she and my dad head up or chaperone or whatever they call it.

"So he was telling me about how compulsions and addictions work together in cycles and how this book really helped him to 'get it'.  I haven't read it yet, but it's really helped him, so I just thought, 'Oh! Arielle should read this!'  Martha Nibley Beck is apparently a really really good psychiatrist and just really understands compulsion, so I think it'd help you," said Mother.

"That sounds interesting," I replied, "So does that 'Nibley' bit come from a relation to Hugh Nibley (very important (to Mormons) dead Mormon scholar and apologist)?"

"Yes, she's his daughter. I think she and her husband are kinda outside The Church now.  Later in life, she had these memories she said were repressed of Hugh Nibley molesting her as a child.  Who knows if they're real or not; I think she wrote a book about that too."

I was pleasantly surprised about the conversation thus far.  I had suggested a beautiful novel to my mother, she had suggested an interesting psychological book to me, and she had been forthright about Hugh Nibley possibly molesting his daughter. I was so glad that we could have these nice adult, mature, friendly conversations.

"Oh wow, I'm surprised I haven't heard of this before.  That book sounds really interesting.  I'm just about home so I'm going to look up Martha Nibley Beck and see what all she's written."

"Well, read the one on compulsions though.  It's called something like 'Getting Out of the Cycle of Compulsive Behaviors' or something like that.  I think that one could really help you."

"Yeah okay, I'm sure I will. This all sounds fascinating," said I.

"...or maybe 'Leaving the Cycle...' or something.  Read that one first at least," Mother reiterated.

"Okay," I said, slightly annoyed because I figured this was one of her attempts to try and get me to hurry up and fix myself because she's annoyed by my OCD, even though, trust me, I am trying my best, and I'm almost positive it's harder for me to live in this brain than for her to have a daughter who has to live with this brain,  "Will do.  Anyways, I'm home, I'll talk to you later," I said.

"Love you!" said she.

It was Wikipedia time.  Born...7th of 8 kids...raised Mormon...married...impressive degrees from Harvard... Ah, here we are, her first book, co-authored with her husband: Breaking the Cycle of Compulsive Behavior.  Clearly the book to which my mother was referring.  Guess what the only description of it is: "mostly focused on overcoming homosexuality".

Oh. So basically what happened is some guy at church struggled with an addiction to gay pornography because he's gay but got eternally married to some Mormon chick so that they could go to the Celestial Kingdom together and thus he found it hard not to indulge in a some extra-heterosexual activity.  One day, he confessed his deepest, darkest secret to his bishop, who then suggested Beck's book to him.  The book really helped him to fight what had become quite an addiction for him, and thus he suggested it to my mother to read so that she could understand compulsion an addiction.  "My daughter thinks she's gay," my mother thought, "and she's got that compulsion thingy.  I bet they're related.  This book could help her get over all that.  Snaps for me."

I'm still surprised when my mother pulls shit like this because I am so open and honest to her nowadays about my homosexuality and my not believing in The Church.  Does she seriously think I'm going to read some book on overcoming homosexuality and decide to try my best to go straight?

Then I kept reading. And here's where things got fun.  Not only did Beck later leave The Church during the early 90's bull shit at BYU when six faculty members were excommunicated for writings deemed critical of The Church, she and her husband then got divorced and came out as homosexuals!  Her book on overcoming homosexuality, as Wikipedia points out, is of course still sold in LDS bookstores.  Perhaps I'll read Nibley's more recent book called Leaving the Saints: How I Lost the Mormons and Found My Faith.

On another note, I feel like sharing another snippet of my dreams. I was playing one of those games in which you have to type all those text commands (look at dresser, open drawer, take key, etc.), except this one also had some graphics to go along with it. At first I kept getting past these people at a dinner party by waving my arms hysterically and passing them by by looking crazy.  I kept playing that part of the game that way but then wondered if that was a cheap trick and there was actually a right way to get through the game and go on to somewhere cooler.  So I kept finding all these crazy secret passages and tunnels and winding staircases and obstacles and anything you can think of. My character was saying to me, "Okay this is ridiculous, I'm never going to find the end to this. There probably isn't one."

Then we found the end. Higher than we could really get to there was a beam, the end of which a beaver or some other furry animal was chewing.  "Okay," I said as I was becoming my character, "is there a point to this?"

The beaver started hinting something about a farm and how I needed to help him feed himself for a while. So I got up on the beam, where I learned the shocking truth that he'd been hinting about: by "farm" he actually meant a row of cats that were being raised as food. There were also four little bowls of mushrooms, carrots, onions, and lettuce there.  My task was to maximize the potential food.  Feed the animals so they get bigger or eat the food and the animals as they are?  Um no.  All but one of the cats basically turned into, or were possibly eaten by, Travis, Caleb, Petty and Quagmire (my four closest guy friends at the time).  The other cat's name was June (a name of one of the characters in Love Medicine).  I was holding the precious cat in my arms, petting it, saying that no one could eat this one.  It had a funny collar on.  At first it stayed in my arms, but then it started to want to leave, but I couldn't let it go because someone might eat it.



This was from my MySpace blog in June of 2007. My mother no longer really holds out much hope that I'll stop being gay. Also, my OCD is no longer a huge presence in my life.