So, the other day a friend of mine posted a question on her Facebook. She wanted to know if people thought gays were born that way or somehow became gay in life. Basically, it’s the old nurture versus nature question. She said the breakroom became quite intense when she posed the question. Some people feel like they were born that way; some people believe gays are born gay. Others believe that they’re nurtured to be gay. Who even knows? Only science can tell. Or maybe God.
What do I think? I think gay people are born gay. I believe it is a natural occurence. People shit themselves when it comes to the subject of homosexuality. Normally, I don’t even like to get into these types of discussions because people get so riled up that the whole thing will just come to blows. I’ll have to shank somebody just to get them to listen to my point of view. But since this is my blog and I can damn well write what I want, I’m going to go for it.
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Someone once said to me that he noticed that suddenly there were a lot of gays. He said it must be “something in the water,” meaning the way parents were raising their children and the oversexualisation that we see in the media. He said it seemed like being gay was the cool thing to do. I told him that there appears to be an abundance of gays because people are now more comfortable with themselves and they don’t feel like they need to hide who they really are. Since this is the new millennium and everything, some people just feel like enough is enough. Let’s let it all hang out.
In my opinion, I do not believe there are more gays now than there were, let’s say, 100 years ago. There were simply more people hiding the truth from themselves and others. If you really look back in history, there’s plenty mention of gay people. Even the Bible has tales of homosexuality. I’m not talking about the supposed commandments against homosexuality, I’m only talking about the mere mention of gayness.
There are many people that believe that homosexuality is against God’s wishes. Well, since these people believe that God created everything, then why did He create gay people? Oh, that was the work of the devil? Well, then explain to me why God would simply not just strike down all these abominations? Why let them roam the earth freely contaminating the rest of us? He let six million of the chosen people go to the exterminator, but gays are free to fornicate at will. This makes no sense to me.
Look, I am a FIRM believer in God. I believe He is the Truth, the Light and the Way to whatever eternal glories are waiting for me in the afterlife. Except for about 15 minutes when I was 17, I have always believed this, and I will never not believe this.
I now have a confession to make: I used to have a huge problem with gay people. I used to think that it was the worst thing ever. I used to believe that it was against God’s commandments. I used to believe that it was an abomination.
I know that I have a lot of gay friends, and I was comfortable being friends with them because I always knew that our eternal salvation, or damnation, is personal. When we die, we die alone. We stand before our Maker alone. All my sins, even the ones I committed with my best friend, are aired out for me and me alone to make atonement. So I would think, he’s gay, he’s going to hell, but he’s still cool though. My soul was safe because their gayness doesn’t contaminate me. I really believed that. I never told my gay friends how I felt because I always felt like they didn’t need to hear one more person telling them they were going to hell. I’m sure they would find out when they got there.
But after Shannon posed her question and I was reading some of the responses, I had this epiphany. Seriously, a light went off in my head and it was the strangest thing that I just did this huge 180. First of all, how can I assume that I know what God really wants? No, really. Who am I to say, “God doesn’t like that!” I’m not sure why ever went off on the this is not what God wants routine. A lot of people do that, assuming they know what the truth is. We’re all just floundering in this flotsam, trying to get by in life. We’ve subscribed to whatever religion, whatever thought process and we’re just hoping against hope that we even picked the right one–provided that anything is even waiting for us when we get there. And you know, that’s a story for another day.
Secondly, who would really choose to be gay? I know this does not apply to every gay man or lesbian everywhere, but we’ll take some American examples. In most states gays cannot marry whom they love. Imagine spending all of your life with the man or woman you loved and when they died, they could leave you nothing because of you happened to be the same gender as your one true love? Even in the states they are permitted to marry, they still have to battle their unsupportive friends and family. They get to listen to horrid gay jokes. Some of them have been abused, maimed, even killed because they are gay. They suffer isolation and humiliation. Fathers have turned against sons. Mothers have shunned daughters. Siblings alienate siblings. Families have been torn apart.
The cruellest punishment is rejection, and it hurts like a thousand needles in the eye when it comes from your own family. Why would someone choose this life?
And then we come to gays who cannot stomach the consequences and they take themselves to crazy heights trying to pretend they aren’t. I’ve heard of camps where they go to get the gay beat out of them. Supposedly the power of the Lord will preach the gay out, like exorcising some demon. I know a man who forced himself into marriage with a woman. He had hoped to have a child and somehow that would make him not gay. Instead, the wife found out about his natural tendencies. She divorced him and took him for every penny he had. Now he’s miserable.
Who would choose this?
I know there are some gays that do not have it this hard. They are comfortable who they are. They have supportive families. They live in pro-gay marriage states. This is not a blanket statement for everybody, but merely an outline of what some people are up against. I know a lot of young gay men who are only half-way out. They jeopardise relationships and their personal happiness because they can’t share their joy with everybody they know. One partner feels ashamed and the other just wants to be normal. With all the “regular” problems in relationships, why would you purposely add that on?
My sister said there was some priest on Oprah who said that being gay was a gift from God to show people lessons in hatred. I think that sounds pretty horrible, but I am now convinced more than ever that we are either born gay or straight. There’s nothing that the parents did to make their child gay. He or she is simply the way he or she is. Maybe you don’t realise it till you hit puberty and you start contemplating all those raging hormones, but I’ve know a few gay men who said they were quite sure they knew they were gay from a very young age.
And for all of us who are straight, did you wake up one day and decide that you wanted to be straight? I didn’t. I know that I did not make conscious decision that I would be straight. One day I was like, “Oh, that boy is cute.” I didn’t say, “I should like boys over girl,” or “Liking girls is wrong, so I’m going to like boys.” None of us made any decision that day we woke up and started noticing sex.
I’m not a scientist or a doctor. I’m not a priest or any other religious figure. I’m just some random person with an opinion, like any other random person.
I know there are passages in the Bible that speak against homosexuality, and I’m really trying hard not to take this blog down that route. It’s such a can of worms, but we have to remember that for awhile it wasn’t so hot to be black, or Jewish, or whatever. Marrying outside of one’s religion was an atrocity. Marrying outside of one’s race was a crime against nature. Marrying the same gender is the new abomination. I believe it is the last hurdle–at least until we can come up with something else to hate.
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