My On-going Evolutionary Path on Same-gender Issues

[Anonymous]

This is a confession-based, introspective post… so please go easy on me… I’m going to be open and honest.

I feel like I’m at a bit of a cross-roads in my life. I want to write this post, not to expound on what I believe, but just to say that my views have been shifting, and continue to do so, and I’m not really sure what they are shifting to.

I’m a pretty conservative person, but my conservatism has changed over many years to where I’m less socially conservative. I’ve experienced three major shifts in my social thinking during my lifetime and all three have been initiated in one way or another by the church. I think my first departure from hard-line views came when I was a young man before the priesthood/temple ban had been lifted… it didn’t make sense to me and I struggled with it. I think it drove me to be more accepting of other races than would have otherwise happened given my environmental surroundings. The next departure was when I served a mission in Latin America and stopped seeing people as belonging to a racial “group” and simply started seeing them as people. But I held onto my non-sympathetic view of homosexuality far longer. As I said in another recent post, while there were other factors, Prop8 kind of made me rethink some of my notions.

In the old-me mindset, I could not understand, and therefore had a hard time sympathizing with, a man being sexually attracted to another man. I admit, it still makes little sense to me. Heck, I can’t even figure out why a woman would be attracted to a man. I guess what’s been going on in my mind for a while now, is that I have known family members who are gay, and that sets an odd and new set of neurons firing, because I knew and loved them before I knew they were gay, and I find that I know and love them just as much now. I find myself in this position of still wanting the best for them, and am more aware that people like me make it harder for people like them to attain the best for themselves. And then Prop8… the old me, would have voted for it (against same-sex marriage). My reasoning would have been to maintain the status quo, but I would have probably come up with a more creative excuse. But then, the church, which stays out of politics probably more than any other major religion, backed that proposition with a vengeance… and I had to think a bit more consciously about whether I was really really opposed to same-sex marriage.

I find that I’m having a tug-o-war on the inside. On the one hand, I’m not really FOR same-sex marriage… on the other hand, I’m no longer against it.

Just to be clear, I do believe that by a mile, the best possible situation for a child growing up is to be in a family that consists of both a Mom and a Dad, married and living together, each bringing the hard-wired traits of their gender in a sort of left-brain right-brain combination that has served humanity very will for nearly six thousand years But I’m also realistic, and recognize that there are plenty of other situations that also work, and that “traditional” families can fail miserably because of economics, selfishness, infidelity, laziness, and plain old mortality. In other words, while I do think there is an ideal, I think it is often very elusive, and that there are plenty of viable alternatives. I also recognize, accept and believe that gender preference is not a matter of choice. I am heterosexual… I could not possibly change that… no matter how much therapy I endured. I get that if I were gay, the same thing would be true. So, for a gay man, it doesn’t matter what MY ideal is, he is not going to seek out or be fulfilled in a male-female union.

Then my head starts to spin.

[Anonymous]

Very well expressed, friend.

This same process is typical of on-going evolution of perspective.

1) We see things one way because it’s the only way that makes sense for us; it’s the only we can see things “naturally”.

2) We are exposed to something that makes us realize how “personal” that natural perspective is – that it’s not as obvious and natural for someone else.

3) If we are fortunate, we know and love people who see things differently than we do – which forces us to see that “normal”, “good” people see things differently than we do. It’s harder to marginalize and dismiss someone if we know them and realize they are a good person doing the best they can according to the dictates of their own conscience.

4) In the end, we still hold to what makes sense to us, personally, but we begin to understand the difference between personal perspectives and societal rules – those things that we choose to let govern us, those things we choose to let govern those who choose to be part of our various-sized circles and those things we choose to let govern the largest, non-voluntary associations of which we are a part. Hopefully, we realize and accept the idea that the rules get looser and looser as the circles get larger and larger – and less “self-selected”.

Fwiw, I also do not see gay marriage as the ideal. I see civil unions with full civil benefits as the extreme, with religions and other organizations having the power to attach any special conditions / meaning / symbolism / etc. to marriages they perform – for whomever they can allow to participate in their marriages. To me, that would be the best balance between respecting how many people view marriage and respecting the human need to have relationships recognized as meaningful and civilly beneficial.

If, however, I had to choose between outlawing all homosexual unions and/or denying them full civil benefits and allowing gay marriage, I would allow gay marriage. If I’m going to err on either side of anything, I’d rather err on the side of understanding and love. I’d rather be a little too “liberal” than a little too conservative.

After all, I”m trying to be godly – and Mormonism posits great meaning to the belief that God “giveth to all men liberally and upbraideth not”. (I know that verse is about prayer and seeking understanding, but I also believe it applies to all who do anything in an attempt to follow the dictates of their own conscience and draw nearer to Him in any way that makes sense to them.)

[Anonymous]

“Then my head starts to spin.”

Imagine your head and heart spinning every day, 24/7 about it. We need more empathetic people like you.

[Anonymous]

On Own Now wrote:

I feel like I’m at a bit of a cross-roads in my life. I want to write this post, not to expound on what I believe, but just to say that my views have been shifting, and continue to do so, and I’m not really sure what they are shifting to.

…

So, for a gay man, it doesn’t matter what MY ideal is, he is not going to seek out or be fulfilled in a male-female union.

Then my head starts to spin.

you expressed yourself so well, and captured the essence of the issue. instead of thinking of shifting to a new set of views, you have made a paradigm shift from the closed world of doctrinal control of your mind to the open world of figuring out for your self what is true through your own experience.

let your mind be at ease with this new beautiful reality. rather than thinking of this as a crossroads, think of it as being on a new road, where the Way is made by walking on it.

enjoy the moment–and may you have many more moments like this as you journey along the Way.

[Author]

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