A Case of a Homosexual!

The author of the famous book “Purpose Driven Life”, Rick Warren was asked by President Elect Barack Obama to deliver the invocation at his inauguration ceremony. This apparently harmless choice got boiled over into a political debate and controversy. Some were opposing it because of Warren’s Evangelical allegiance but most decrying it because of Warren’s stand against Homosexuals and Gay Marriages. The topic occupied so much print space that the interest in the invocation threatened to supercede the interest in the inauguration itself!

It’s amazing how the society has transformed in the last few years. From hush-hush discussions to become a voice of reckoning on national and international issues, homosexuality has come a long way. The fight of the homosexuals doesn’t end with the subject of their right to marriage. They are fighting for parenting rights too! It’s such a big debate that the proponents of the Gay movement say, “The last decade has seen a sharp rise among gay people planning and forming families through adoption, foster care, donor insemination, and other reproductive technologies so much so that the current period might be remembered in history as a lesbian and gay ‘baby boom.’”

All this reminded me of a meeting I had with Sam, who had come in from Bangalore to visit our city. This happened a few years ago. I hadn’t known Sam till I met him that day when I was meeting up another friend, Arun, at the University Canteen. Arun and Sam were childhood friends and that day we met up by chance. I don’t remember every talk that we had between the three of us at the canteen that day, but I will try to reconstruct the talk. After Arun and Sam had exchanged their niceties and greetings, I don’t remember how but I remember Sam proudly stating that he was “Gay” (a homosexual)! I promise you that I was shocked, shocked by what I has just heard, and shocked also by the calm with which this young man expressed his orientation. It was unexpected and I think that it was still a taboo! I became very uncomfortable just thinking about what all Sam would be playing and replaying at the back of his mind even while he was also talking to us. I just wanted to rush out from there but then I saw that Arun was determined to talk with Sam. Since I knew nothing much about homosexuality then, I was almost reduced to be a silent listener to what ensued. Read to find what happened at the Soul Café of my college days – the University Canteen!

Arun: I should admit that I didn’t see that coming.

Sam: I don’t understand why you have to expect things to be in a certain way all the time. I mean, it’s not right to expect everyone to be fulfilling the standard norms of society. Moreover who has framed these standards anyway? It is narrow mindedness. The whole world is opening up to a plethora of possibilities but in matters of sexuality, we still want things to be done the way they were done since ages.

Arun: Well, it’s not just one group of people who have followed this norm for centuries. It has happened across the globe, across religions, cultures, civilizations?

Sam: You mean to say that all these groups, and religions and cultures never had gay people among them?

Arun: I didn’t say that. See, the basis of our moral judgments are the scriptures and religious texts and along with defining murder, rape and stealing as immoral, homosexuality too has been defined under the same roof. It’s so unnatural.

Sam: It is not unnatural. They have found out homosexuality in animals too!

Arun: But is it the norm or the exception? It is possible that such behavior may have been seen in animals. The Bible says that the entire nature has been corrupted by sin and has come under a curse.

Sam: This is what we don’t appreciate - holding up the Bible for making every decision in life and classifying everything that is not common as sin and curse! I am a free man and I will decide for myself. We will not take your definition of God and marriages lying down. I am positive about life and love. There should be no lines to drawn to explore the various aspects of these. I don’t understand why you guys have to be so judgmental? Maybe you don’t know it, but I am not the only gay around here. Maybe your neighbors, cousins, colleagues, and even other friends are gay too! You might be surrounded by them. Doesn’t the Bible teach that we should love our neighbors as ourselves? Then why do you nurture this judgmental attitude towards gays?

Arun: You definitely can make your own choices. So can I, isn’t it? Again who says that I hate gays? But I definitely do have my reservations against choices and value systems that gays espouse and flaunt. Love and Freedom should be enjoyed within boundaries. Anything without limits is harmful. For everything in life, we have limits and therefore this too. The only question should be where to draw the limits? But you guys don’t want limits at all!

Sam: I told you, that love shouldn’t be bound. Be free, be positive.

Arun: I have read that the outer positive-ness and attitude that gays usually carry is only superficial and it’s a mask that you guys make up to suppress the underlying guilt and depression.

Sam: Rubbish. I am what I am. I don’t need to put up a face. For whom?

Arun: People put up a face for two reasons. One, they fear others. Two, they are doing it for themselves. Moreover, gays carry a superiority complex of sorts. It’s as if they have the right to cross all moral boundaries as compensation for the ‘injustice’ they faced in life. This feeling in them is almost like an obsession!

Sam: I wonder who is gay? Me or Arun? You sound as if you are God and have access to the inner feelings and thoughts of gays worldwide! (meanwhile I thought that it was time for me to chip in something too)

Me: Sam, tell me, when did you realize that you are gay?

Arun: Whenever it was, I don’t think Sam that you should blame it on society. With the kind of background that you have been brought up in, don’t say that it was social rejection or something.

Sam: I think I was born that way. I have heard of a story in the Hindu epics wherein a man is reborn as a homosexual by his own choice because of excessive sexual obsession in previous life!

Arun: You mean to say you were a pervert in your previous life and that you chose to be a homosexual?

Sam: (Smiles) Could be. But science has come up with proof that DNA and hormones plays a role in sexual orientation. I think, it’s more of a chemical phenomenon and nothing more. I don’t understand the hue and cry made against choice!

Arun: There are only suggestions that the reason could be genetic. It has not been proved by any researcher and moreover there is not a single genetic, hormonal or physical difference between a straight and a gay. Also, most gays admit to having been sexually aroused by a female and an almost similar story can be said about lesbians. So I think that this reason fails. We cannot go by what one or two reports say. I have also read somewhere that homosexuality is a mental disorder and illness! But I don’t buy that too. It is not a mental disorder.

Sam: Definitely not. All professional mental health organizations have gone on record to state that homosexuality is not a mental disorder or illness.

Arun: Right. My take is that most homosexuals become victims of bad habits and are involved in lot of self-indulgence thus making them sexually accommodative and experimental.

Sam: Could be but that is not my story. My family has no history of homosexuality. My siblings are straight to the best of my knowledge. My choice isn’t some adverse reaction to child abuse or any trauma of that sort. I did not get mixed up in bad company. I have not picked up this concept from the western world. Moreover, I also go to my worship place once every week to say a quiet prayer, not a prayer to demand something, just to say a hello to God and thank him for the wonderful life he has given me. I respect all religious texts and love seeing the adoration my parents devote to it. They have loved me all my life. Moreover, I was not exposed to pornography or excessive masturbation before I found out my orientation.

Me: Maybe you are doing it just to appear ‘cool’. Just to challenge social norms. Or maybe you are doing this to escape the drab routine of your life or simply experimenting?

Sam: See, I am no philosopher nor am I a messiah for homosexuality. I just don’t know how and when, but I fell in love with someone and that’s what made me realize that I was gay. It was kind of a shock to me too mainly because I knew that people all around me would term it as ‘disgusting’, ‘repulsive’ and ‘cheap’. But as I dwelt on it for sometime, I realized that what I was experiencing was pure love and that love shouldn’t be bound. My heart only understood love and not the strings that came attached with it. I am what I am and I love it the way I am. You guys cannot condemn me and I will not appreciate it.

Arun: Hey relax Sam. I am not trying to win anything here. We are just talking and you are my friend irrespective of your orientation. I have read on this topic and although you maybe knowing it, nonetheless let me remind you that all research and reports suggest that a gay lifestyle is dangerous. Homosexuals are more vulnerable to sexually transmitted disease (STD) and even AIDS as almost 1/3 of gays have multiple partners, are 3 times as likely to attempt suicide, are 4 times vulnerable to murder someone, and average less than a year of sexual fidelity!

Sam: Now I don’t know from where all you gather such interesting statistics! I simply can’t understand how such blanket conclusions can be made by any researcher - 3 times more likely to attempt suicide and 4 times more likely to murder! It’s simply ‘Ridiculous”.

Arun: Maybe you are right but even as I look at these issues myself, I have realized beneath all intellectual, emotional and psychological garb and verbiage, man’s covert desire to have a world without a Holy God. To be honest, the real issue is not an absence of moral order in the world but the insistence on determining for oneself what is good and what is evil, in spite of what we intuitively know to be true.

Sam: What Holy God? I don’t understand your language.

Arun: Believe it or not. Accept it or not. But I have got to tell you this. Human life can have meaning and value only in the reality of the True God and this is because GOD has made human beings in his likeness. Hence every act that doesn’t fit the likeness of GOD, or dishonors & disrespects another human (read likeness of God) becomes unlawful and is an evil and is liable for judgment!

Sam: Another curse!?

Arun: No Sam. It’s very easy to assume that this world always was. But I believe that it was specially created by a God with specific purposes and He appears powerful enough in what He has created to be able to take his plans to completion. I also believe that He has revealed parts and portions of His plans and intentions to us in creation, in scriptures and even in our own conscience. It’s on us to put these parts and fragments together and find the truth.

Sam: Ok. There could be an element of truth in what you are saying now but not all people talk to us as courteously as you are doing now. In fact the ‘holier than thou’ attitude of religious people irks us. We often feel like we are being persecuted when we come around religious bigots. That’s why you will see that gays have an animosity towards “all” religions because they exclude us from “spirituality”.

Arun: I know and it is sad. But Sam, participation in homosexuality, or say drug abuse or anything else is a combination of will and opportunity. There has to be a will to indulge in it and then the opportunity. When man rejects the authority of God and his statutes over his life, the Bible in the book of Romans says that God gives them over to follow their own lusts and desires. The lusts and desires take over and it’s only then a matter of the opportunity. It ultimately spirals down from bad to worse acts along the way and it’s along this downslide that the Bible mentions about homosexuality. The debased determination of man to play God or to accept anything else other than the true God himself as the supreme over his life is unacceptable to God.

Sam: Let me confess that in the past, there have been times when I have tried to escape being what I am now.

Arun: Oh! I am glad to know that. To turn from gay to straight needs self determination but also a feasible spiritual commitment and climate. I know of some people who were gay and have now become straight. They say that they could do that only with the help of Christ. I have no reasons to disagree!

Sam: I would surely like to meet such a person.

Arun: I will try to set up a meeting. But I would like to make one more my argument against homosexuality.

Sam: And what’s that?

Arun: The case of ‘Gay Parenting’. It’s still acceptable as long as you keep the exercise of your choice to yourself, but when you involve other people, as innocent as little kids and influence and shape their lives (most likely than not, making them gays too), that’s truly offensive and I think unacceptable.

Sam: I haven’t thought about that!

Arun: Yes I presumed. Most people think only about the now and the present and fail to extrapolate into the future and determine the possibilities in life and beyond. My contention is that being born to a woman and fathered by a man (be it naturally or in vitro), the children who are brought into this world by the combined contributions of both these genders need to be brought up with the combined inputs and efforts of both the genders too. I mean, if both the genders were needed to bring the kids to being, I suppose, its natural, rational and logical to expect both the genders to be involved for as long as possible too. Gay parenting robs the kids of this benefit.

Me: Right. The gays blame the DNA for their inclinations and instincts but they do not want to let go of an opportunity to raise up a generation after them! Kids brought into this world through a heterosexual relationship, they want to nurture it and bring up this children under the influence and “care(?)” of a homosexual relationship!

Arun: I really doubt the ability of such children to understand gender roles in the future and moreover their future sexual orientation is mostly going to be gay. Reports suggest that these kids often end up as abusers in the future.

Me: I am glad I had “normal” parents when I was growing up and even now. I learnt different things from both my father and my mother. My mother gave me the values and knitted my basic belief framework, while my father lived it out (tried his level best) and became my inspiration and role model. My mother defined love and hospitality, my father defined compassion and strength. My mother corrected me when I was younger and my Father guided and stood by me when I became older. My mother talked a lot into me, my Father impressed me deeply with his silence. There is so much more to say!

Arun: I agree. I and my wife are trying to do and be the same for our kids too. We also see a bit of ourselves and each other in them too. But much more than all that is an opportunity to re-look at our own growing up stages and the marvel of God’s creative wonder and perfection unfolding before us in the form of the various stages of growth of our kids and everything enjoined. It’s a pleasure and it’s a privilege too. Many people assume that whatever we are and have today has evolved just because of the choices of our “brilliant(!??)” ancestors and we need to continue the tradition in making choices of our own. ‘Gay Parenting’ is surely one such liberties that we are taking. If Adam and Eve struggled in their parental roles and ended up ‘Raising Cain’! I wonder what the ‘Gay Parents’ will raise!

Sam: I agree that you guys have made me think. But give me some time.

Arun: Take all the time you need. But see the whole picture before you decide anything.

I think that Arun did a reasonably good job that day. But the Sams of today will not be as tolerant as our Sam was. I never met him after that day, but I hope to see him some day and know what he finally decided. I hope LGBTs (Lesbians, Gays, Bisexuals and Transgenders) will take a holistic perspective on love and life. I know of no greater love than what I see on the cross and no greater life than what resurrection offers. Meanwhile, let’s hope that Rick Warren is able to influence the LGBTs of USA and of the world and the President Elect himself in some unique way. God bless.