Something troubles me...

[Nehustan]

I have to give you a little background for this post to make any sense, so here goes.

I was on my way to work the other day. It was a typical wet late winter English day in London. As I walked down the road I saw the puddles in the gutter, and the water making its way into the drain system. I thought of my T-Shirt, stopped bent down, cupped my hand into the water and lifted the water to my mouth and drank.

Very peculiar behaviour I'm sure you are thinking, well not so. The T-Shirt I was wearing was from a charity called water aid, my daughter had asked me what the image on the T-shirt meant (a lady carrying water upon her head) and we spent a little time googling images where she saw multiple people gathered around a pump, carrying the water in that almost archetypal image...

So tonight I boarded a bus into China Town to buy us some Friday evening Dim Sum. I sat down to a young man wearing nothing but a short sleeved bowling shirt, and quipped to him that he must be from the North, given how cold it was. Of course he was, and a conversation was struck during which I became aparty to his sexuality. The main gay area in London is across the road from the restaurant I had ordered my Dim Sum from so I as a result of my conversation strolled around the area. As I walked I saw people out on a friday night and I pondered my own thoughts. The main thought I had was this, what would offend my God more, consenting adults 'sinning' or a child dying every three seconds. I think if my God wanted me to make a judgement or get worked up about things, he'd put the death of a child every three seconds higher up the list of priorities than what consenting adults may or may not do. What do you think?​

 

[d.]

not much more to say, really. froobz to you.

 

[Quiddity]

Certainly there is a hierarchy in that sense. But I doubt the hierarchy makes void the ones at the bottom. You do what you can with what you have.

 

[Nehustan]

I think my point is Victor that there are things you can change and things you can't. Not only is there a hierarchy, there is practicality. My suggestion is that any religious person who gets 'het up' about homosexuality, bottle that energy and expend it on something that is likley to/can be changed. I'm guessing that a homosexual won't thank you for your christian concern, but a child that lives as a result of correctly aimed energy/thought/action....well there's a good chance he'll think you a saint.

(As a postscript.....I see rather more conversations here on RF, which is made of the more thoughtful elements of religious communities, about homesexuality than on child poverty....so I'm not sure exactly how high up the priority list it actually scores. It may be added...'what can we do about world poverty?????'. Well my retort has to be...probably a damn sight more than you can do about someones sexuality!!!!)

 

[Quiddity]

I think my point is Victor that there are things you can change and things you can't. Not only is there a hierarchy, there is practicality. My suggestion is that any religious person who gets 'het up' about homosexuality, bottle that energy and expend it on something that is likley to/can be changed. I'm guessing that a homosexual won't thank you for your christian concern, but a child that lives as a result of correctly aimed energy/thought/action....well there's a good chance he'll think you a saint.

From a practical standpoint I see both as difficult Nehustan. If I can chip away at both, I will. I don't have enough energy for any of it.

 

[Nehustan]

Well I don't see somebody else's sexuality as difficult, it's not really my business. I am just as guilty as anyone concerning the threads on homosexuality. Its just the thought became quite clear in my head this evening (see previous posts postcript.) Is the reason that we maybe discuss homosexuality on RF so often actually because we know we can't change it, so its safe. Whereas actually poverty can be changed, so we choose on the whole not to discuss it, otherwise MY GOD what might happen, we actually might have to DO something instead of talking about it....better left undiscussed.

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

I think my point is Victor that there are things you can change and things you can't. Not only is there a hierarchy, there is practicality. My suggestion is that any religious person who gets 'het up' about homosexuality, bottle that energy and expend it on something that is likley to/can be changed.

The subtext seems to be: no matter how sick, no matter how much an abomination, let it go and focus on more important issues. You caution folks to focus on "something that is likley to/can be changed", subtly suggesting that homosexuality should be changed, but won't/can't.

(As a postscript.....I see rather more conversations here on RF, which is made of the more thoughtful elements of religious communities, about homesexuality than on child poverty....so I'm not sure exactly how high up the priority list it actually scores.

Priority list? How many points do we give a gay couple denied human rights. How many points do we give the traumatized child? What of the lonely child who remains lonely because tthe gay couple cannot adopt?

Your nuanced 'tolerance' is unimpressive.

 

[Nehustan]

its not 'nuanced tolerance', I just don't really think its my business.

(By the way I like the way you point out the sub text of 'let's concentrate on important issues rather than other people's sexuality', you seem to infer it was subtle....to me that was the headline.)

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

You wear your 'concern' for children on your sleeve while noting that bigotry is none of your business. OK

 

[Nehustan]

You wear your 'concern' for children on your sleeve while noting that bigotry is none of your business. OK

No bigotry is my business, especially my own, I think that was the main jist of the thread, I believe I used the 1st person (albeit plural) when it came to homosexuality.....actually no....I used the singular, so it would seem that this thread very much was concerned with my own opinions, which I quite openly displayed alongside the concern for children. I don't even think that it was subtle? Maybe your definition of subtle and mine are some distance apart.

 

[Nehustan]

I'm waiting for your witty yet oh so intellectual retort....with the obligatory ' ' suffixed. I thought it would be here after I had made my coffee?

 

[Judgement Day]

hmmm..coffee..i want one..'making'

 

[jamaesi]

I fail to see why a kind and just G-d would care more about my being gay than my helping to give aid to children in need (and I was made this way, I never choose to be gay knowing the heartache it causes me and denying or repressing my homosexuality just makes it worse).

And if he would care more about it, let me burn.

If I can chip away at both, I will. I don't have enough energy for any of it.

Praytell, how do you chip away at homosexuality. We can't change.

Deny us more human rights? Shun us to some remote isle? Round us up and kill us?

 

[Nehustan]

Jamaesi, this thread wasn't meant to really focus on homosexuality, sorry to bring it up really. It was just I had some clarity about something that occurrs quite often here on RF, and thus I presume quite often in the real world too. I think your 'can't change' part sums it up for me, and that was my point. Whereas we really can do something about child poverty so I think its odd that this topic is really not broached here. I mean we really talk about most things, and we all must be on a relative scale 'wealthy' (i.e. Computers, telephones, etc.), and yet we happily disuss things that as you point out 'can't change', while ignoring things we obviously can. Of course maybe I'm wrong, maybe many people on RF are actually using satcoms and laptops to access from some far flung place where they are busy with development programs, thus don't need to talk about it. Myself I'm sat in my front room, having just woken from a deep sleep in my comfortable bed, wondering if Jayhawker had come back with a smartalec comment yet.

 

[kevmicsmi]

Well I don't see somebody else's sexuality as difficult, it's not really my business. I am just as guilty as anyone concerning the threads on homosexuality. Its just the thought became quite clear in my head this evening (see previous posts postcript.) Is the reason that we maybe discuss homosexuality on RF so often actually because we know we can't change it, so its safe. Whereas actually poverty can be changed, so we choose on the whole not to discuss it, otherwise MY GOD what might happen, we actually might have to DO something instead of talking about it....better left undiscussed.

Unfortunately the only way to truly change real poverty is to change certain governments, and without force, that takes an extremely long time

 

[sojourner]

Popular Christianity seems to deal a lot more with "who to keep out" than they do with the social gospel. The historic creeds were developed to "keep out" the heretics. Many churches still "keep out" women from ministry. Now the popular scapegoat is the homosexual community. (I have to wonder...Jesus had tax collectors and whores among his disciples. Were any of his disciples homosexual?)

The Church seems to feel that it constantly has to define "who it is." Instead of claiming its identity as "The Body of Christ," it, instead, chooses to define itself by who it is not, And, right now, it is not homosexual. The social gospel, being secondary to deciding "who we are not," often gets lost in the brouhaha.

 

[maggie2]

I think Nehustan makes a valid point. If we'd leave homosexuals alone and put our attention on people with desperate needs we might save a life or two.

If anyone saw Oprah or Anderson Cooper last week they'll know that there are people in the Gulf Coast who are still in need of help. Do we have any way on this site to help Katrina victims? Maybe we could do something to help them. God knows the American government doesn't seem to be getting the job done.

 

[Quiddity]

Praytell, how do you chip away at homosexuality. We can't change.

Deny us more human rights? Shun us to some remote isle? Round us up and kill us?

Let's agree to disagree on the change. As for your other comments, not worth responding to such drivel and non-sense. Does it make you feel fuzzy inside to categorize me in such a light. How sad.

 

[Nehustan]

Unfortunately the only way to truly change real poverty is to change certain governments, and without force, that takes an extremely long time

That is true to a certain extent, but there is another way to look at things, let me tell you a story I once heard...

A young child is at school, and has to wait to be collected from class by his mother. The teacher decides she is going to settle down and do some marking so finds something to occupy the child. She gives the child a jigsaw of a map of the world, the child begins and the teacher begins to mark. No more than 10 minutes later the teacher rises and walks across the classroom, and is shocked to see the young child has completed the puzzle. 'Well how did you do that?' asks the suprised teacher. 'Oh...' says the child, '...it was easy. On the back of the puzzle was the image of a man, so I put the man together and the world came together too.'

I think my point is first I change myself, then the I becomes we, then as my signature states...

 

[jamaesi]

Let's agree to disagree on the change. As for your other comments, not worth responding to such drivel and non-sense. Does it make you feel fuzzy inside to categorize me in such a light. How sad.

I'm not agreeing to anything but the fact I know I never chose to be gay. I don't care what you think of it.

What do you want to do about the homosexuality problem, then?

Jamaesi, this thread wasn't meant to really focus on homosexuality, sorry to bring it up really. It was just I had some clarity about something that occurrs quite often here on RF, and thus I presume quite often in the real world too. I think your 'can't change' part sums it up for me, and that was my point. Whereas we really can do something about child poverty so I think its odd that this topic is really not broached here. I mean we really talk about most things, and we all must be on a relative scale 'wealthy' (i.e. Computers, telephones, etc.), and yet we happily disuss things that as you point out 'can't change', while ignoring things we obviously can. Of course maybe I'm wrong, maybe many people on RF are actually using satcoms and laptops to access from some far flung place where they are busy with development programs, thus don't need to talk about it. Myself I'm sat in my front room, having just woken from a deep sleep in my comfortable bed, wondering if Jayhawker had come back with a smartalec comment yet.

I do community service, I'm planning on a service project to Thailand in the fall with Jensa, my house is almost always home to a stray puppy or hurt wild animal that would just be put down but I can help cure or a person who needs a safe place. I help complete strangers on the street when I see someone struggling instead of just walking by. I'm in involved with the political process, I vote, I help sign people up to vote, I help campaign, I write letters and talk to my representatives about changes I would like to see them do in the country and this world. I'm not changing the world, but I'm doing what I can.

And yet and yet and yet!

My being gay is the drug through the streets and shot at at every opportunity and hey I'm sure in some places it would be phsyically ME being drug into the street and shot if strangers knew I was gay.


I'm frustrated and so weary and apologise for any snappiness, but I won't apologise for how I feel. I understand your point completely, though.