Bay, my Reform Jewish rabbi is herself a lesbian in a partnered relationship and three children.
“As he becomes one, environmental factors (as opposed to biological ones) are huge. I have a constant awareness that he is watching me and is identifying with me. He repeats what I say, mimics what I do. He is watching how I treat his mother and how I interact with her. In a million little ways he is picking up things that are framing what he perceives as normative.”
When our son was born until he was in college, his father was a United States Marine. At that time, homosexuality was “banned” in the military. So, our son grew up almost exclusively surrounded by straight families. And our son is gay. If anything, I think our situation lends itself to the idea that sexual orientation is hard-wired from birth (or before, but you know what I’m saying.)
Luckily for our son, he grew up with parents who have always accepted homosexuality as normal. Our church accepts it as well and, in fact, the gay families he was exposed to were at our church.
I’m very glad our son was out (& proud!) well before college decision time, so we were able to look for a college that would be supportive of all aspects of our son. If I had a gay child at this college, I’d be quite upset as it seems like it was a supportive place. Or at least supportive enough that people felt like they could be honest about who they were. Now, I don’t think it is. And that is a real shame.
That’s great that Reform Judaism treats gay people as equal in every way. But the number of people sharing your religious identity in the US is less than 2%, and probably a minuscule fraction of that world-wide. It’s an outlier, in the world of religious doctrine.
,As he becomes one, environmental factors (as opposed to biological ones) are huge. I have a constant awareness that he is watching me and is identifying with me. He repeats what I say, mimics what I do. He is watching how I treat his mother and how I interact with her. In a million little ways he is picking up things that are framing what he perceives as normative. "
So if a kid is gay, his parents must not have modeled hetero love and romance properly or enough? That’s your theory?
“I do think Erskine can be judged and criticized for having the policy, but saying it is wrong not to accept homosexuals (by accepting I mean that agreeing what homosexuals are going is not wrong and really just normal) crosses a line from tolerance and accomodation (which the school does actually) to trying to change the school’s religious morals. That strikes me as disrespecting the religion at a fundamental level and thinking you know what is right for its followers. Too self-righteous for me.”
Is it not ok to disrespect certain religions a a fundamental level? For example Westboro?
My mother is a devout Roman Catholic, but she stopped buying Tropicana OJ in the 70s because Anita Bryant was their spokesperson and was very anti-gay. My mother grew up in NYC, saw a lot of shows of Broadway and stated to me that “God must love the gays, otherwise he wouldn’t have made them so talented.”
If you believe people choose to be gay (and I do think some people sometimes choose to engage in homosexual behavior without specifically being gay), you must also believe that people choose to be heterosexual. I don’t think I chose heterosexuality - I was always attracted to the opposite sex.
Westboro is not a religion. It is a renegade sect of some sort. It calls itself Baptist, but it is actually unaffiliated with the actual Baptist church, which has always said that Westboro has nothing to do with them. This is an example of a group calling themselves whatever they want, but it does not mean that is what they are.
Nice, but can we answer the question? You were concerned about disrespecting certain religions at a fundamental level. I’m pretty sure there’s at least one religion (perhaps rhymes with Lislam?) that you don’t think fondly of.
I would consider that unacceptable (and unintentional) exaggeration of what I said. I wouldn’t pretend to know the various reasons why every person that experiences same sex attraction comes to that.
That environmental factors are enormously important - I wouldn’t say that was just my theory or just a theory held by those who are religious or social conservatives or whatever in an exclusive sense.
Here is a current statement from the APA on the subject:
There is no consensus among scientists about the exact reasons that an individual develops a heterosexual, bisexual, gay or lesbian orientation. Although much research has examined the possible genetic, hormonal, developmental, social and cultural influences on sexual orientation, no findings have emerged that permit scientists to conclude that sexual orientation is determined by any particular factor or factors. Many think that nature and nurture both play complex roles; most people experience little or no sense of choice about their sexual orientation.
http://www.apa.org/topics/lgbt/orientation.aspx
This is the American Psychological Association. The APA is not Liberty University by any stretch of the imagination.
Do I think I have a tremendous influence on my children, on how they think and act and perceive the world, and eventually how they are going to relate to the same and the opposite sex, how they perceive gender roles, sexuality and what is normative? Absolutely I do. Are my parents and their influence completely responsible for who I am and every choice I have ever made? Of course not. That is ridiculous in the opposite direction.
I’ll be honest. These aren’t questions I have devoted a tremendous amount of time to considering. Maybe I haven’t had to because as I have said before I made up my mind a long time ago that it wasn’t going to affect how I treat people. I have read some of the links that were shared. I am going to look and consider at the biological basis for this and follow the research as it continues. If I say that I care about people it seems to me I should do that. Who knows, it may eventually change my view. It won’t be the first time or the last time.
“Many think that nature and nurture both play complex roles; most people experience little or no sense of choice about their sexual orientation.”
Given that most people experience little or no sense of choice (I didn’t wake up one day and decide to be heterosexual, I just am), it would seem to me, then, that the natural conclusion is that it is as meaningless of a “marker” as being right or left handed - it’s just a variation in the population. I’m right handed but that doesn’t make me better in any way than left handers, just more common.
No offense, irishmom, but your post made me laugh. Your mom quit buying orange juice in support for homosexuals, but remained a “devout” adherent to a church that does not accept them as moral human beings. No doubt gay people across America are eternally grateful for her sacrifice.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homosexuality_and_Roman_Catholicism
Catholic colleges are generally far more tolerant than fundamental Protestant ones. I’d rather be a gay student at NDame or Georgetown than Erskine or Liberty.
Just saying that just because people belong to a faith (and in her case, it was large part of her cultural identity as an Irish person rather than belief, although she went to Mass every week and confession and all of that…until the pedophilia protection network came out - then she quit church) doesn’t mean they adhere to the tenets of said church.
Same way that 99% of Catholic women use birth control at some point in their lives.
PizzaGirl,
Here is what Notre Dame U says about homosexual students: http://friendsandallies.nd.edu
In a nutshell, NDU adheres to the Church’s stance on the subject; homosexual students are okay, so long as they don’t have sex. This sounds on par with Erskine, to me.
As a non-religious person, that is the part I don’t understand. That is, how people can call themselves “Catholic” when they don’t follow the tenets of the church, and conversely, why they would want to be Catholic if they don’t believe in the tenets of the church.
People have made points previously in this thread making comparisons on this issue to changes in American society concerning race, desegregation, wrong side of history, etc.
I believe that is false equivalence in this sense - anyone using scripture as the basis for racial prejudice weren’t just on the wrong side of history, they were on the wrong side of scripture. Way too much credit is given to idea that the bible was used to justify the superiority of one race over another. When that happened those who did so were misappropriating scripture, not honoring it.
In the case of homosexuality, this is not the case. If you are a Christian and you can get there, it is because you are comfortable not seeing the entire bible as complete and without error, or that it isn’t eternal and that it can be changed or revised to fit the times we are living in.
Evangelicals who hold to a view that the bible is infallible could navigate the changes in racial relations just fine, and should have found the changes to be morally the right direction. Not so with this issue.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/20/opinion/sunday/dowd-here-comes-nobody.html?_r=0
Bay, I wonder if you are familiar with Maureen Dowd.
Alh,
Articles like that make me depressed.
That’s all I want to say about it. But thanks
http://www.stjohnsmcc.org/new/BibleAbuse/Leviticus.php#
Translations: Divinely inspired or subject to error?
Alh,
I read that when you posted it earlier. I have no comment other than to say if God had words about homosexuality, he sure made them difficult for humans to understand.