My Response To My Cousin
So in my last post I posted a letter my cousin wrote to me after I got married. As you might imagine after reading it, I was livid, and I weighed on whether or not to answer him. I decided I should. I am not one to take being called a sinner lightly, especially by another sinner, Mr. Glass House. My (long) response, after the jump:
Update 12/17/2008 02:25 AM: I have also decided to license of this letter (perhaps presumptorily) with a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike License. Details are at the bottom of the post.
December 13, 2008
Dear Cousin,
I received your letter almost immediately after returning from the joyous occasion of my wedding and my honeymoon, and it upset me greatly. I had just completed one of the most momentous and happy occasions of my life only to come home to a disturbing letter from someone who ostensibly is supposed to be supporting me, and who further, quite frankly, knows very little about me, who I am, and what I believe.
While I understand that you say your conscience or your faith may have compelled you to write your letter, I must question what ends you hoped to achieve by doing so. As many of the arguments in Catholic theology themselves rest upon the ends not justifying the means, and assuming that you surely understood before sending your letter that even despite its peaceful tone it likely would be an offensive and inappropriate way to achieve questionable ends, I must say I was and continue to be mystified as to what actually persuaded you to print the letter, stamp it, and mail it. I have never felt compelled to write another person and tell them that I think they are sinful and that their fundamental nature—their very being, in fact—is wrong, even when I do have strong feelings on the matter. I haven’t even gone so far as to write another person attacking their beliefs—the things that they choose to put faith in, but that are not in fact an inseparable part of their nature any more than their favorite food or color choice is—let alone the immutable facts about their very existence. A simple “No” RSVP would have sufficed.
I have weighed heavily on how to respond to you, or whether to do so in the first place, on the grounds that doing so would seem somewhat pointless. But your letter was hurtful and not right even when couched in the shroud of alleged love, and you deserve to know that.
Denying others their own love is not love itself, and nor is prescribing to others who, when, and how they may love. It is quite the opposite.
I have gone over many of the arguments you present in your letter for years—starting first in my Catholic morality class at St. John’s and continuing on through the rest of my Jesuit education at Fordham—and I have, since the beginning, found them morally, logically, and philosophically lacking, and even worse at times inconsistent with other Church teaching. While the faithful may be willing to accept such denials of logic, nature, and reality, I am not. Notwithstanding the fact that I am not Catholic and never have been—and thus am no more bound by its tenets than I am by those of Islam or Rastafarianism or Scientology for that matter—I think it is more than fair to say that I have a thorough understanding of Christ’s teachings as well as the very separate issues of Catholic history and dogma. I continue to educate myself on them, and on other religious and philosophical issues, to this day.
The history of the Church—and in fact, of most religions in general—is at its immutable root that of man interpreting God. Regardless of what you believe about holy men or church leaders, about their callings or grace or holiness, they are all by definition fallible men, and as fallible men they have always made, and continue to make, many mistakes. This in an inarguable point, as history has shown us. Sadly for all humans, those men that lead the Church have repeatedly misinterpreted God on too many occasions to count, and further on too many of those occasions those misinterpretations have been in polar opposition to Church teaching, overall Christian theology, and humanistic morality. While some people might wave these uncomfortable facts away and continue to believe in spite of the hypocrisy, I cannot and will not do so.
Many of those awful mistakes (and they are most certainly still being made) are transgressions against God and man. They are among the most heinous acts in the history of humankind: the Crusades; the Inquisition; the Protestant Salem Witch Trials; Popes fathering children; the complicity of the Catholic Church in the Holocaust; the Church Sex Scandals; steadfastly insisting on the heliocentric theory of the universe and the resulting excommunication of Galileo; the Vatican’s recent opposition of the UN resolution condemning discrimination based on sexual orientation; the list goes on and on and on. While I am sure at some point those churchmen who were browbeating Church dogma into others thought they were doing God’s will because the Church told them to, we know now that they were not. They were in fact committing acts of evil. And if they had stopped to think about Jesus’ core message in the first place, perhaps they would have also stopped and saw that their Church was so incoherently wrong in its actions and teachings at the time that they should had come to a conclusion on their own, and that history, sanity, honesty and morality would vindicate them in the long run.
Agreeing with the Church simply because the Church teaches something does not absolve anyone from the wrongdoing that might result from their following that teaching. If the Church is doing something wrong, it is the right and duty of any and every human being to disagree with it, to speak forcefully out against it, and to actively work to change it. Someone who murdered others in the name of the Church during the Crusades or who was complicit when a Nazi went to slaughter a Jew or a gay person during the Holocaust was still guilty of a heinous crime against man and God regardless of whether his Church ordered him or allowed him to do so or not, and regardless of whether he thought that by following Church doctrine he was doing something morally right.
Which is all to say that the Church has been wrong many times in the past, and that those with the courage and conviction to stand up against it when it is doing wrong are those we now honor as bringers of light and as the true followers of Jesus Christ. Jesus himself defined that when he stood up against the religious corruption that surrounded him during his life.
The fundamental nature of being gay is rooted in love, in the inherent right to choose to seek one’s happiness and to love those whom one was made by God himself to love, and further to love them in the manner of one’s choosing. While the Church may not agree with this, I think Jesus would be shaking his head in disgust at the Church’s attempts to stop people from being loving with one another, especially when they are doing so in his name. It is yet again another example of the divergence between Christ and those who say they follow him. “I like your Christ,” said Gandhi. “I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.”
In its position, the Church is essentially saying “You can love who we say you can love in the manner we say you can love them.” Since God is love, by defining the boundaries of love the Church is by extension trying to corral God into its own small, sad version of love rather than the all-encompassing reality of love of all shapes and sizes that God truly is. But the Church does not have a monopoly on love or on God, and neither God nor love will be corralled. Thankfully God is bigger than the Church, and God loves the Church and its folly—and those who acquiesce to its folly—in spite of their attempts to make him less than he is, and in spite of their attempts, however well-intentioned, to define him to fit their own narrow definition.
Anselm’s ontological proof of God said that God is the greatest thing of which any of us can conceive, and I subscribe to his proof, at least in part. I think it follows, however, that a God who has any sort of anthropomorphized limitation—such as anger or dislike or anything remotely resembling human emotion—is not the greatest thing of which we can conceive. Since as I am sitting here writing this I am conceiving of a God who is much greater than that, who is not so petty as to make bizarre rules about how, when, where, and whom one can love, it stands to reason that such a limited God goes not exist, and that in fact even my conception of God is limited. If the greatest thing the Catholic Church can conceive of is a God who is thus limited by the aforementioned things—namely Church dogma—I do not think it is God who is limited.
I am also perfectly certain that the Church is wrong about this issue, like it has been wrong about so many things in history. Its current stand against homosexual sex is a convoluted argument that irreducibly binds sex to the creation of life, which simply makes no sense, since in the natural world those things are by their nature decoupled. Their exact same policy holds that impotent heterosexuals cannot get married and nor can infertile couples use IVF to have children, which are both reprehensible, nonsensical viewpoints, and are again inexcusable attempts at reducing the many forms of love into a palsied, weakened, single definition. It is not wrong in reality for impotent couples to get married or for infertile couples to have children through science or for gay people to have sex. Condemning gay people to such life condemns them to loneliness and constant sadness, and I can’t even begin to believe that is what Jesus would want for any of us.
All of these things may be wrong in the eyes of the Church, but we also know that that Church has been unconscionably wrong before. Since we know this, we also know that believers must all necessarily take personal responsibility for forming their own consciences and senses of morality outside of the framework of their religion in order to lead just lives. While the Church may be right on things, the fact that it has been so wrong before leaves the weight of morality on the shoulders of the individual and not on the religion. There are many truths out there, and many ways to view the world, and no one viewpoint can possibly encompass all of the wonder that is creation. You can choose to agree with everything your Church says, but in doing so, as an intelligent person, you also must implicitly realize all of the facts that I have mentioned above—that your Church has been wrong before, that its wrongs have caused significant hurt and anguish throughout time, that it is doing so as we speak, and that, by agreeing with it, you are perpetuating this injustice upon millions of people. Ultimately those who have done the most good in the world, including Christ himself, have set about forming and claiming their own morality in what amounts to a revolution against the entrenched status quo and the corruption and malfeasance present in the lumbering organized religion around them.
Again, just as has happened in the past, those who stand in just defiance of wrongdoing; who stand on the side of the oppressed; who would do unto others as they would have it done unto themselves; and who continue to live the true message of Jesus Christ through their words and actions will stand in history as the true Christians, while those that simply follow their religion’s system because it is what their religion says and is the easy thing to do will face their own fate.
Lastly, you circumspectly used the word “union” in your letter to me, as if by using the word “marriage” you would yourself be “recognizing” my marriage as such. Luckily, no one needs anyone else’s recognition of his marriage to make it one. The idea that one person “doesn’t recognize” another’s marriage is ludicrous in the first place. If I were to suddenly not recognize every heterosexual marriage out there would it somehow alter the actual relationship between any of those married couples? Of course not. The logical extension of that theory is that unless everyone agrees on what to call a relationship that it remains in some undefined limbo. The very notion is absurd. Can I define your relationship with your parents, or with your daughter, or with me? Not in the slightest. Jonathan and I alone define our marriage, and anyone else “not recognizing” it makes about as much sense as not recognizing that the sky is blue. It is a denial of reality. We are married whether anyone else likes it or not. Jonathan is my husband, and I am his. He is part of your family now, whether you like it or “recognize” it or not, and you would do well to remember that when next we all meet.
For I have been somewhat uncomfortable or even afraid of being around my family for precisely this reason for most of my life, and that notion is both sad and absurd. I have avoided family gatherings precisely because certain members of my family put me in a position where the things they choose to believe come into conflict with the thing that I am. The absurdity here lies in my own fear of my family, but the sadness lies on the other side. Neither I nor anyone else should ever be in a position of having to defend themselves as they were created. I will not do so any more. My immediate family is unified with me on this. They have wondered, for the longest time, why I have avoided coming home during the holidays and at other times, and it’s precisely because of this reason. I’m done with it, with being uncomfortable where I have no cause to be. God made me to do better things than cower in the shadow of those who would use his name to do harm to others.
I was actually unaware that my marriage—my joyous, wonderful, happy marriage—had any negative effect on anyone, and quite frankly I fail to see how it could. No one has a right to be hurt or upset about my being gay or my being married, and if they do that is entirely in their hearts and is quite frankly their problem that they need to keep to themselves. I am, too, a good and just person. I have volunteered and continue to volunteer my time with the poor, the sick, and the disenfranchised and have since I was a teenager. I was raised to be a man for others, and I will raise my children to be the same. I stand up for the rights of those who can’t stand up for themselves even in the face of overwhelming misunderstanding, opposition, and hate. I have been gay since I was born, and being gay is an immutable part of who I am. I am perfectly comfortable with it, and with where I sit in relation to God in regards to it, as well. The opinions of the men of the Catholic Church could not have any less relevance for me.
What does have relevance for me is the support of the majority of my family and certainly all of my friends. The family members who came out to support us at our wedding were an incredibly important part of the celebration, and I can’t thank them all enough. When I told them of this letter they were utterly shocked and angered by it; they couldn’t believe that one of my family members would take it upon themselves to sully such a joyous occasion and bring sadness and misery down on what was an otherwise fantastic event. I myself still remain shocked by it.
It is not easy to live as a gay person in the world. It means living in a world of prejudice and misunderstanding, of religiously sanctioned bigotry, of fighting for rights and fearing for safety in small-minded places, of getting mistreated and laughed at and marginalized in ways you really can’t imagine. It is a world of families tearing themselves apart and homes being broken, and it’s all over love. There is nothing just about that, and by acting the way you have acted in writing your letter you have continued that injustice.
There is a time that one must choose between what is right and what is easy, and it is always easy to plant oneself behind the views of one’s religion in an attempt to justify one’s behavior. Just because your religion tells you something does not make it right.
Being gay is the furthest thing from easy. But it is right for gay people to be here in the world, and for us all to live our lives happy and fulfilled. Someday the Church and its followers will realize that. Until then I will continue to work against those who would smother my love, and the love of hundreds of millions more people, with their own beliefs.
I will love whom I choose to love, in the manner of my choosing. No one is going to limit me, and that is just as God intended.
Best,
Nick
Response to My Cousin by Nick Hodulik is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License
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Nick, I respect you as a person. I respect that you have the guts to stand up for believe in.
However, I am against gay marriage. I know this will be far from a popular opinion here, but is one I hold nonetheless. I do not look down on you for your sexual orientation or think poorly of you for it. I just believe in a God who is bigger than we can understand, who is, as you said, unfathomable.
I agree that the Church has done many terrible things.Nonetheless, I believe in God, not the Church, and my God is a god of love, who looks out for his children. Why then would this God hurt his children by not telling them that gay marriage is alright? It makes no sense
This argument is probably irrelevant to you. However, I fervently believe in the God of the Bible. I also believe that all people should be treated with love and compassion. I recognize that you will not agree with me. I just wanted you to know that not all people who disagree with you on this are necessarily against you.
I am amazed and astounded at people who continue to declare to the world, “I believe in the God of the Bible.” You do realize that the Bible in itself is an imperfect collection of stories that were finally written down LONG AFTER the events had already occurred? The book of Matthew was written 60 to 70 years after Christ’s birth, and all of us should know that human memory is fallible. There are many contradictions in the Bible, and many other books that SHOULD have been included in the Bible but were not due to the Council of Nicaea’s designations of what should and shouldn’t be IN the Bible. All decided for us about 1700 years ago. Who is to say that love shouldn’t have been held in the higest regard above all else, no matter male or female, caste, creed, etc.? We all know slavery is wrong, yet it was rampant and accepted in Biblical times. There was a huge amount of gospels that were left out because they were deemed unacceptable by the Council. Out of all those gospels, however, there are two rules that I hold dear from all of the other “teachings” of the Bible: Love thy neighbor, and Do Unto Others As You Would Have Done Unto You. Live by these two rules and you can pretty much guarantee that your life will be rich and fulfilled. I applaud you, Nick, for being able to put into writing what I have felt FOR YEARS was a logical and sound argument why the Christian majority were so very wrong in their arguments. Everything you have stated are very big reasons as to why I no longer consider myself a Catholic anymore, they have become very unreasonable, erratic, and irrational. This was a wonderful read, thank you for having the brevity to post it.
TOVERTON,
Just say the truth: OF COURSE you look down on Nick for his sexuality. You do so, simply by claiming that the Bible is God’s word and that God doesn’t “approve” of gay men and women.
This tired tired tired argument has been used too many times, and it’s the basis of Nick’s perfectly understood response to his cousin.
But simply put for you, who does NOT, in fact, respect any gay person for their sexual orientation (because if you did, you would have never written your response), if you believe in GOD’s Bible and the Bible as the WORD OF GOD, then you have to follow ALL practices in Leviticus where that ridiculously pagan verse states: Man shall not lieth with man as he does womankind; it is an abomination. You will have to condemn and SPEAK OUT against all men who sleep with women during their periods, as fervently as you speak out against gay men and women. You will have to REALLY follow what you believe in, or else….stop being a bigotted homophobe!
Most of us, are just tired of listening to that crap, in the name of LOVE; in the name of some silly man made GOD who gets pissy that a percentage of his creations are GAY!!!!
How ridiculous this sounds, and how stupid it is.
God doesn’t tell us anything. Various people say he tells them things, but who of them are we to believe? Do you expect him to just kneel down and whisper in someone’s ear that gay marriage is alright, and for that to be suddenly the case? If so, whose ear? Let’s settle this once and for all: God has, in fact, knelt down and whispered into my ear that gay marriage is OK. So we can wipe that argument off the table. God officially declared it OK when I prayed to him this morning, just to clear up any an all confusion. He spoke directly to me. We’re all good now. We now know what God thinks, time to move on, nothing to see here. Legalize gay marriage now, God’s cool with it.
“Why then would this God hurt his children by not telling them that gay marriage is alright?”
Why would god hurt his children by telling them slavery IS alright? The simple solution is that there is no god, that’s what I believe and it clears everything up for me personally. If you do believe in god you have to realize the bible was written by very fallible and imperfect men. If you insist on using the bible as your basis for discriminating against an entire class of human being, please at least be consistent. You should support the death penalty for homosexuals (Lev.20:13), Adulterers (Lev.20:10), and women who engage in pre-marital sex (Deut.22:13-21). You should also support slavery Lev.25:46, Exod.21:2-8, Eph.6:5 (Really the bible is just littered with support for slavery, both direct and indirect. Perhaps the biggest opponent to emancipation and civil rights was the church.) Please don’t pick and choose what parts of the bible you believe and use that to justify hatred and bigotry. Do you really believe in a god who would send two people, created by him to be gay, to hell for all eternity because they loved each other? And for those who believe it’s a choice, BS! Did you choose to be heterosexual? I could never “choose” to be gay, it would be physically impossible; I would never be able to get it up! If you believe it is a choice, I’m pretty sure you are bi-sexual in the least and possibly a full blown closet homo-sexual. Just because you are capable of making that choice doesn’t mean others can! Besides, the fact that we find homosexuality to be very common in the animal world pretty much ends that idiotic debate. Finally, what we are talking about is law made by the US government. Because of the first amendment the US can’t support a particular religion. So unless anybody can justify the legal discrimination of US citizens without relying on the bible, there is no justification to deny rights to a particular group of people. This country stands for freedom and equality for ALL of it’s citizens.
ok im not gunna use good spelling and grammar so please bear with me… gay marridge should be allowed in california as it should be alllowd in the world. your personal prefrences or beliefs should not interfere with other peoples rights, i mean what if all u anti-gay marridge folks all of a sudden were not allowed to be married or have sex with the person you love wouldnt that suck??!! YES it wud and u kno it so please keep ur insecurities to urselves and stop trying to make other people suffer cuz u have nothing better to do
Loverton, I don’t recall ever telling you that gay marriage is wrong. I don’t appreciate your attempt to defend your discrimination in my name.
You asked, “Why then would this God hurt his children by not telling them that gay marriage is alright?”
When have I personally ever spoken on this matter? I see many vague bible excerpts speaking against homosexual behavior. Then again, I also see many bible excerpts speaking for polygamy, incest, and racism.
All in all, the only message you humans are sure of that I have sent to you is of love and compassion. How is denying a group of people the same protection under the law an act of love?
“Why then would this God hurt his children by not telling them that gay marriage is alright?”
Since when has God himself told anyone today anything? Isn’t that the point of faith? We can’t account for God’s word. Events in the Bible have been proven, but not exactly what he has or has not said. We have to believe, right? What if we are believing in the wrong thing? What if some homophobes wrote pieces of the Bible and modified God’s word?
I’m bisexual and I’m an open Christian. It hurts to see love being put down. How can God not love me if I’m happy even through the hardest of times? How can me loving a woman be wrong? (Although I am in love with a man. We are all people and love is love, why be defined by our sex? What if marriage took on a different meaning when the Bible was written, such as a ceremony for two people joining to create a family. Back then, two men or two women couldn’t have a child together. The meaning of marriage HAS changed, anyone who tries to deny that is ignorant (I’m sorry, but have you looked around?) and I don’t see why God wouldn’t want two homosexual people who love each other dearly to join together in holy matrimony.
Maybe I’m the ignorant one, but the point is that you can’t really say God hasn’t told us face-to-face anything, so how do you produce evidence? It’s all in belief, as what religion is all about.
Toverton,
I am not sure I follow your argument. You state that you don’t look down on someone for his or her sexual orientation. You also state that yours is a God of love. And yet you take it upon yourself to interpret scriptures to say that gay people cannot marry. Or rather, it seems your argument is that the scriptures don’t explicitly state that they can get married. Why would God hurt his children, indeed? I think the answer is that God does not do this. You are doing it. You and those who interpret the Bible in this fashion. God also does not tell us whether or not Pluto is a planet. Perhaps this is because in the greater fabric in the universe it simply doesn’t matter. Pluto is, and that is enough. Homosexuality is, and that is enough.
Your argument is not just irrelevant. It is further proof of what hurtful things people say while they frantically try to sugar coat their own prejudices and hypocrisy with nice words. If you are against gay marriage, I put forth that you are certainly against those who are married and gay. It raises in my mind the same red flags that go up when I hear people say that they have lots of black friends, and sure African Americans should go to college and they can be in the work force, but it just doesn’t seem to be a good idea to have one as President.
I submit to you that you need to look deeply into your own heart and find out what it is that lurks there, informing you that you have any right whatsoever to be against gay marriage. It simply is none of your business. If you want to be against the marriage of any particular couple, I’m not sure it’s your business unless you are part of the couple.
And having said that, I don’t think religion should even be a part of this equation. I am a woman married to a man, and the church has no authority over me or our union whatsoever. Why, then, are people so quick to decide the church gets to weigh in on gay marriage? In the U.S., the church and state are separate for reasons exactly like this. I don’t want your church to tell me that I have to have long hair, or submit to my husband in all things, or any number of ideas that I think are part of an outdated and long-dead culture.
If your church chooses to exclude those who are married and gay, then so be it. I am quite sure your church would choose to exclude me, as well. But the state has absolutely no business deciding that some marriages between two consenting adults are okay, but some are not. Not in my country.
If you are against gay marriage, don’t marry a gay person. But there is no reason for you to state it for the general public.
Toverton,
I feel bad for people like you, who, after reading Nick’s letter, fail in comprehending it’s uncomfortable truth in relation to their religion’s teachings.
I consider you a victim of something far worse than the shallow prejudice you fling at Nick.
You will likely never realize the Bible was man’s invention in a time when the written word was as powerful as money is today. Think about what that implies… really think.
The men that wrote the contents of the Bible, and those that pieced together its components, and those that edited those components over the years…. all of them were INSPIRED to write what they wrote, but all of them were men nonetheless, with opinion at the core of their beliefs. And just as today’s holy men can molest children in pursuit of their desires, it is naive to think the men of biblical time wouldn’t “Create” stories to help achieve their “divine desires”, no matter how well intentioned they were at the time.
They were men, nonetheless.
God did not mention gay marriage in the Bible because God did not write it.
That should be the most liberating of concepts for you - but you are a victim of Culture. And Religion is a component of Culture.
The truth lies beyond cultural beliefs, if you ever really dare to leave your comfort zone to find out. If not, you still have my pity. I wish you courage.
Nick, I wish you eternal happiness.
-Mike
What do you disagree with him on exactly?
That gay marriage is against God? If you believe this then your disagreement with Nick directly correlates to him being a “sinner” which is what you must see him as if this is your disagreement. How can you be against the sin of homosexuality but not against the person behind it? What more is there to a person than his/her habitual actions? There is no separation of action and body. Therefore if you are in disagreement with him, his lifestyle, his views, whatever, you ARE against him.
As you stated, your opinion is not popular but you hold to it nonetheless. This is not loyalty or courage but blindness. Have you considered why your view is so unpopular? Because it is based on faith, solely on faith, with absolutely no basis of fact or place in reality. But there are people who see the facts and live accordingly to them and have no problem accepting what is true: factually, there is nothing wrong with gay marriage. The reason your view is unpopular is because you believe that which is blatantly twisted, and the nature of your belief directly opposes and marginalizes those who have the ability to live realistically. In fact, you actually need to expend effort to hold on to your opinion don’t you, because falsehood need constant attention and care, which is why you so bravely hold on to your belief despite the conformity of opinion around you. This is the same when you state, “I agree that the Church has done many terrible things.” And then say, “Nonetheless, I believe in God, not the Church.” You know for a fact that your institution has done horrible things in the past yet you hold true to it, based on faith. Well regardless, you would probably respond to me by pointing out that the real purpose of your message was to say that God loves everyone and that gay people should, of course, be treated with love and compassion, as you said. But again, how can God love a person and hate the fact that he/she is married in a same-sex relationship, having sex? Either God will have to accept the person for who they are and ignore their sin, which he absolutely cannot as stated in the Bible (God cannot tolerate even the smallest sin); or God has to deliver his judgment on /something/. Can he punish a person’s actions alone? Of course not! He will have to punish the person himself. Do you see how contradictory it is to say that people who disagree with you are not necessarily against you? Not on this issue. If you disagreed with someone, for example, on the quality of a brand of cereal, you can do that without being against them because you did NOT bring into question the morality of choosing which cereal you prefer. There is no good and evil involved with that choice. As for gay marriage, it was the Christians, Catholics, Mormons, and other religious groups who so enthusiastically brought morality into question, otherwise you would have never said , “However, I am against gay marriage.” There is a reason you are against, it is because you think it is morally wrong. You must stick to your choice to declare a judgment of morality on the issue. To say you are against gay marriage religiously, is to name it as evil. As a christian, a explicitly stated Bible-believing christian, how can you not be against Nick? You cannot condemn an act and not experience the opposition that you stir up. Gay marriage is a matter of human rights, and the decision between treating all humans equally or some less equally, there is no gray area, in this issue, in which you can condemn freely and still profess to be believe that the very object you condemn should be treated with love and compassion.
Nick, Thank you for your terrific, articulate reply to a truly offensive gesture of fake “inclusiveness.” Tell your cousin to investigate “Fortunate Famillies”, a Roman Catholic organization “advicating respect and justice for their gay & lesbian children”. http://www.fortunatefamilies.com
Unfortunately, it probably would do no good.
Meanwhile, love well, live long. Happy forever after!
Jane
I didn’t even bother with your reply, because it’s not relevent to my response. Your cousin has it all wrong, and you are even more oblivious to the “TRUTH”. There is no need for me to challenge you, nor is there any reason for me to defend the Bible. It’s fine on it’s own without me needing to screw it up with my “know-it-all” attitude, like sooooo many others.
I have more then a few gay relatives and here is what they’ve shared with me. None of them have ever said, “I was born this way”, they haven’t said, “I just get so hot for the same sex”, but what they do say is they have just wanted to be with the same sex as a personal preferance. So that to me is simply the free will that God gave us, and that’s what they wanted to do. So why bring religion into the equation if it’s not the reason you are gay? Your choice is your own, so don’t shove it down the throats of the majority. I love being married but I won’t be jumping up on any soap box screaming for attention, so why don’t you just chill?
The Mrs, I am afraid your experience with your gay relatives does not encompass, nor reflect, the vast majority of other gay people’s experience nor the general scientific view on the matter. Which is no matter to you, I am sure; from the tenor of your response you seem like the type of person who has wrongly made your mind up, and further that even when presented with facts to the contrary you are likely to hold stronger to your incorrect beliefs. Which is fine; that is a comfortable and common place to rest one’s mind.
It does not, however, change the reality of the situation that we are all born as we are. Just as I am sure you didn’t choose to be heterosexual, and can’t imagine that you’d choose to climb into bed with another person of the same sex, the vast majority of gay people didn’t choose to be gay. The only people who debate this are straight folk and gay folk who don’t want to be gay. You don’t find gay people running around protesting “It’s my choice!!!” because for almost all of us it is not, just as it is not for you.
And the very notion that I am shoving anything down your throat is absurd. The only thing my marriage has to do with your life is that you apparently think about it — at least enough to go searching for something about gay marriage on the Internet — a hell of a lot more than I think about yours. I just want my own life, my own husband, my own family, and the same rights as everyone else, and quite frankly that has nothing to do with you. It doesn’t affect you in any way whatsoever, except again that when you think about it you apparently get squeamish.
If you really don’t care about it, get off the soapbox you say you’re not on of writing comments on someone’s blog about some issue you ostensibly don’t care about and keep living your quiet majority-ruled married life. Just let those of us whose lives depend on equal treatment actually get it.
That’s not shoving anything down anyone’s throat. Gay people exist, and you can’t just wish us away by mistakenly believing we’ve all chosen a life where we all are struggling, daily, for our rights against people like you. So you either have to come to terms with reality, or you have to construct some alternate reality, as you have, that makes it easier to live your life. So if you’d like to keep believing what’s wrong, feel free; it will not change the facts of the situation for the world to have yet another person with silly ideas that make their insulated world easier to live in. It has gone on throughout time, and, as you prove, it is still going on.
Meanwhile, people like you make people like me and my husband suffer. You, personally. At your hand, at your word, you are perpetuating injustice on millions of people. You are making my life incredibly more difficult than you realize. You can claim whatever reveal of ignorance or difference of worldview you want, but you need to know — and I am speaking to you directly, not to the concept as a whole — that to continue down that path means you are committing an act that directly hurts me, my husband, my friends, your gay relatives, my community, and, whether you’d like to believe it or not, the world at large.
also, gratz on the wedding man, i wish you and ur husband the best ^^
Absolutely! Finally, someone said what I wanted to say. Gays say that they want heterosexual couples to live their lives and not to bother them. Why don’t gays also live their lives and don’t bother
anybody? After all, people don’t have to accept
anyone or anything they don’t want to accept. What
about my right not to accept gay marriage? I don’t
have a right to do that?
That line of thought literally makes no sense if taken to its logical extreme. What if I don’t want to accept that you don’t accept gay marriage? Don’t I have that right, as well, thus invalidating your right to not be accepting? Or if I think about something first, do I stake a claim to it as the first of us who thought it, and thus you have to begrudgingly accept what I accept? That game of circular logic can be played ad infinitum. Whose being accepting or not accepting trumps the other person’s? Gays aren’t asking specifically to be left alone, they’re asking to be afforded the same level of respect and privacy that straight people are afforded. They’re just saying that any one person’s marriage to another person is strictly those two people’s business. From the sound of things I probably wouldn’t accept much of anything you think or do, but I do respect your right to continue thinking that way, as long as you don’t get in the way of my happiness in the process. The line has to be drawn somewhere. The only thing other people’s marriage has to do with your life is that you seem to be dwelling on them much more than you are on your own, which suggests you need to let people live their lives in peace and not interfere with things that have nothing to do with you.
All of you are quite correct that is not my job to condemn. That is not the message I hoped to convey. Nor am I interested in arguing what is, in essence, one of the most closely held beliefs in our country.
I simply wanted to say that though I disagree on this issue, I am invested in advocating the equal treatment of gay individuals as human beings. Though I am not ashamed of my beliefs, I love and respect you, Nick, as much as I would anyone else. I hope that we may continue to disagree on this issue without demonizing the other side.
In response to “Toverton” who said “I hope that we may continue to disagree on this issue without demonizing the other side.”
I think its past time to “disagree on this issue without demonizing the other side.”
Its time to demonize the other side. Your willingness to deprive fellow human beings of the same rights you have is devilish and should be demonized. Just the same as if you were telling me that we should be able to cordially disagree on a slavery, voting rights, the rights of children not to be abused and any other CIVIL RIGHTS ISSUE.
Your stance is reprehensible. You’re clueless about your own religion. And your heart is blackened, demon.
The only hope for you and your ilk is that you may become enlightened by sheer luck someday.
While I totally and completely agree that civil rights issues are important and people should be passionate and steadfast in their resolve to amend injustice and while I totally and completely understand the frustration and anger and other intense emotions that are stirred up in the face of opposition (I have been there and felt those emotions myself), I think J Jameson has gone a step too far. While we don’t necessarily always have to be cordial and polite to one another… harsh words are OK, heated and impassioned responses are OK… BUT it is not right to dehumanize those that are different from us in any case, for any reason. Further, I don’t think it does any good to call each other names. Toverton is a person. His ideas are not right in my view, and while I don’t think I have any chance of making an impact on him (especially since Nick’s eloquence did not) I am certain that calling him a demon or any other nasty name is not going to cause him to suddenly reform his thought processes. As opposed to alienating each other, we’ll make better headway if we stick to the issues. After all, any 5-year-old can throw stones, call names and otherwise try to hurt others but it is in the issues, it is in the argument, where we have an advantage - logic is on our side.
Nick, thank you for this. I found your very powerful, brave, and articulate response to your cousin quite by accident while surfing the web, but I wanted to send you my encouragement and congratulations for your wedding, and to remind you that simply by writing this letter I am sure you were able to declare your own strength and reaffirm boldly who you ARE– neither in defense nor in rebuttal, but simply as a manifesto of how great it feels to be yourself and how sad and absolutely ridiculous it is when family members or those who SHOULD by all means love and accept and celebrate you for just being yourself somehow take issue with who you are and exploit your identity as a means scapegoat their own hurt and hatred. In sharing this you empower all of us to open our eyes once again and say, “yeah– why am I defending who I AM?” –whether or not we’re even “religious” or married/unmarried.
I have relatives who are Jehovah’s Witnesses, and fortunately they have never once expressed their own theological prejudice against the fact that I am gay, and I feel this is because they can see the difference between “teaching” and “practice,” as well as between themselves and others. This is paradoxical given the fact that their religion encourages them to proselytize, but I am grateful for their acceptance and love.
In the United States we are only just seeing in the mass-consciousness of our country, and actually the world, the ascent to the highest office of a man who is extraordinarily capable, wise, compassionate, and intelligent– who happens to have dark skin and who happens to have been born from a binational union. No doubt this is not the end of racism or reason to think that Americans are no longer obsessed with race, but the very fact that he overturned the status quo and that the majority of us voted him into office means that as a nation, the majority of us are less concerned by who he “is” (lowercase) than who he IS. We have seen too many presidents who have even come into office largely because of who they happen to be (like the son of former President Bush, Sr., for instance). Now we are seeing that at the end of the day, Being Yourself, in the true sense, is what will always prevail and win over the hearts and minds of humanity. And the same is true of love, and always has been. How could love between two consenting, loving partners–and how could the desires those individuals feel–be anything less than human and anything less than god-given and blessed?
I believe that one day, each and every person who, in fear, has literally followed a particular chosen “Instruction Manual” for life word by word without daring to step outside into the sunshine and live life for themselves– everyone who has grasped desperately onto the rules of “black and white”– will finally see cracks in their fragile walls and see the bright sunrise and rainbows on the horizon. But that day will not come any sooner unless we all let go of our fear and breathe confidence and compassion into our greater humanity.
Nick,
You are a brave, intelligent and compassionate man. God bess you and Jonathan, and I wish you all the blessings one can wish upon their fellow human being. I don’t pray, but I really hope your family open up their hearts and minds a little bit and realize that their duty on this earth is to love and support YOU, and that nothing should get in the way of love!
For those who don’t understand Marriage is a civil contract between 2 consenting adults. Currently the state states Man and Woman.
But, they are in violation of the constitution, which separates church and state. If it is legal for 2 consenting adults to have sex in the privacy of their home, it is illegal for the state to violate the constitution and not allow 2 consenting adults to marry.
I say that because the truth is always overlooked. The act of Marriage brings many rights with it. Including family status and tax deductions and automatically places next of kin status on each spouse and allows them to claim job related benefits for each other.
Civil marriages are legal for Men and Women and religions have nothing to say about it.
I don’t know you, but I hope you have a wondeful marriage and I’m sooo, sooo proud of your response to your cousin. I hope my marriage (in a year or two!) to my partner will be as happy as it sounds yours is (I’m sure it will be - that’s why I want to get married!).
Nick, I just want to say good for you. Everyone deserves the right to love whomever they please. I wish you the best of luck in your marriage.
I know it sounds preachy and condescending for me to say this to a man who has a greater command of the English language than I do, but I say this with the utmost respect for you: Don’t ever let someone tell you that who you are or who you love is wrong. Nobody deserves to be defined by anyone but themselves.
No, it doesn’t sound preachy. Thanks for reading this and commenting.
Thank you so much for sharing these letters with all of us, I found your writing very enthralling. It gives me the strength to stand up against my family’s intolerance and allow myself to live the life I dream of with my partner Brandon. I hope that one day he and I will be married. I hope you don’t mind that I’ve printed your response and reread it from time to time to regain my footing when looking for inspiration to stand up for what I believe in and who I am.
Thanks again!
Jeff
I don’t mind at all, I’m flattered.
Your note was a great insight. I am a Christian and heterosexual, and willingly profess my ignorance of gay life, not by choice, but I just don’t happen to have gay people in my circle of friends. What I know comes entirely from websites (like this one) and Brokeback Mountain and reruns of Will and Grace, haha. I know I’m at risk of appearing a bigot even entering such a discussion, since limitation-of-experience (i.e. ignorance) is easily mistaken for bigotry. (I’m like the well-meaning white guy who’s doing pretty well talking earnestly to a group of African-Americans and then accidentally uses the phrase “you people”. No real ill intent, but trouble ensues. Or the guy who’s a few years behind the language and still says “Colored”. Subtle difference, but I’d call that ignorance, not bigotry.) I hope you’ll take what I say with a generous predisposition to attribute any stupidity you may find to my ignorance and not my ill-intent.
Anyway, you expressed something I’d often thought myself, but had not heard expressed directly, that it didn’t seem credible that being gay would be a choice one would voluntarily make, since it would be choosing to throw innumerable hardships into the path of your life. That you must navigate all the same challenges of living as any human must: finding love, finding a definition of yourself, etc.etc., none of which are easy under the best of circumstances, but you must do them under a thousand extra complications and with the predisposition of millions of complete strangers to oppose and mitigate your sources of happiness. FOr no good reason, which is the really perplexing part of it.
Like Bob Marley’s lines, “Sheriff John Brown always hated me, for what I don’t know. Every time I plant a seed, he say, kill it before it grow.” Those lines have always chilled me - it really goes to the heart of irrational hate. How the most damaging thing you can do is attack and negate the tiny, small successes and happinesses that a person may be lucky enough to eke out of this life. FOr no good reason.
Why should they care? It really is perplexing, why someone should make someone else’s happiness such a source of concern to them. It’s like the old quip, “Puritanism is the deep-seated fear that someone, somewhere, is having a good time.” It’s perplexing. Why should it concern them at all? I’m sure you’ve pondered this mystery at much, much longer length, and in a much more personal way, than I. But at least know that I share your mystification by it.
In closing, I do wish you warm congratulations and happiness, and make the suggestion that, as they say, the best revenge is living well. Any time and energy spent elsewhere on people like your cousin is energy spent away from people you care about and time away from nurturing and watering whatever seeds you may be able to make grow in your lifetime. There is a palpable drift with the generations in your favor, and by our childrens’ time, many of these issues will seem quaint and antiquated. I can remember a time when it seemed impossible to imagine a black president.
In the meantime, do what persecuted people have always done: the slaves, the Jews, blacks, even once the Christians: build a wall as best you can around your life, and within those walls, out of view of the bigots and barbarians, build a garden.
Hey, shoot a few arrows over the wall for sport, like your letter, if you feel like it, but don’t let an iota of that color or taint or reduce what you and your husband are attempting to build.
What an incredibly nice, well-said, thought out response. It made me smile. Thank you for taking the time and energy to write it.
I love articulate and informed people … even better when they add logic and intelligence to ignorance…and being gay doesn’t hurt either.
Very well said. All the best to you and your husband!
I beleive those who spend much time pondering others sexuality may be questioning thier own?
Nick,
I stumbled upon this blog via Facebook. Your response to your cousin was eloquent, passionate, honest and very well-informed. I myself have had to deal with family members like your cousin and have responded to them in a similar fashion as you. I just wanted to let you know how much I appreciate your words and how much I related to this particular entry. The world is lucky to have a person like you dwelling in it. May you and your husband share a long and prosperous life together… And, congratulations on your marriage!
Nick, I also happened upon this exchange through Facebook. I am a straight ally and had the honor of acting as witness last summer to my neighbors’ gay marriage. Your letter is one of the absolute best arguments I have ever come across in my activism–particularly in response to obnoxious “hate the sin, love the sinner–but still deny them basic equal, human, civil rights” type arguments. I wish you and your husband all the best. P.S. Your “God whispered in my ear” comment was 10 kinds of awesome! Right on, man.
Nick,
What a beautifully written response to your cousin. Thank you for sharing. Excellent letter.
Nick,
I am a heterosexual male teen with multiple gay friends. Thank you for taking the time to respond to ignorance and hate with an articulate and well thought out piece based on love and courage. Nick, You give me the inspiration to stand up against the hateful. May you and your husband live a a long and happy life filled with love and compassion.
I have printed out your letter and given it to one of my gay friends. (Hope you don’t mind)
From the sunny beaches of San Diego,
Daniel
I am a bisexual woman married to a man. I love whomever I happen to, and I just so happen to have a “straight” marriage. Since my family automatically accepts this relationship, I cannot say I relate to the judgment you’ve suffered from yours. However, I do relate to your struggle on a whole. I’ve had multiple lesbian relationships throughout my life, and in the past have felt required to hide them from the religious majority of my family and from many of my religious friends. I wish that back then I’d had the strength that you do to be who you are without fear or secrecy. Without sounding condescending, I’m extremely proud of you for replying to your cousin with sound logic and a gentle tone. I’m proud of you for not giving in to the urge to be hateful in response to his disdain. And as far as the “nature vs. nurture” debate goes, here’s my experience: While I may choose the people with whom I have relationships, I do not choose the people whom I love. My heart chooses for me, and my heart cannot ignore the love it feels for anyone. Whether romantic or platonic, love connects people to each other indiscriminately. The sooner the world understands this, the sooner we will have true equality and happiness. Thank you again for your courage and openness, and I wish you the same happiness in your marriage as I have in mine.
I agree. Well-said.
Nick,
Really, what can I say? You said it all and you said it beautifully. Thanks for your courage. I think this is how we will change some hearts and minds.
Sincerely from San Diego
Nick,
Fantastic response ! I wonder if the cousin ever responded.I and my fiance are with ALL of you in support. Equality for ALL.
In fact my fiance and I are not going to get married until EVERYONE can get married. My family are Mormon our protest is hitting them hard.
My mother said she never knew how important the issue was until after the ote and she saw everyone stand up d fight.
Support for gay marriage rose oer 10% in 4 short years and support against it dropped oer 11% if they voted again in California today prop 8 would fail.
The elderly pushed it over the top. With each day more of them die and are replaced by new voters who understand everyone should be equal. the 35 and under crowd voted somewhere around 80% against prop 8.
The tide is turning my friend.
Nick,
Thank you so much for eloquently articulating so much of what I too believe. I know that so many people will continue to disagree with your logical arguments and spirited petition for understanding, but take heart…so many of us are with you. Congratulations to you and your partner! I hope you had a lovely honeymoon. Marriage isn’t easy, as I’m sure you know now, but it’s certainly worth the try…even when you’ve got so many people against you. You have guts, real guts, and smarts…a rare combination these days.
Kathryn in CA
PERFECT, Nick.
Let me start out by saying I am a 14 year old girl living in Santa Monica,ca
I personally find it disgusting that me, being so young, is so much more mature that you ignorant fucks out there
I was Raised in the Christian Church, but always given the decision of what i believe in, and more importantly whom i choose to love
the mere fact that people in 2009, in this day in age where u can buy a new face, revive someone after there heart stops beating, catch a killer from one strand of hair, etc.. where intelligence and technology are rising faster than ever before and people still believe in something so preposterously stupid
I admit I myself had a very hard time separating myself from the church, it is much more easier to believe in your exact religion and hide behind god than accept you make your own fate and you are the owner or your mind body and spirit
Who is this God that says two people cannot love eachother
Who is this God that says if you have sex before legal marriage it is a sin
what was god saying in the times BEFORE there was even such thing as marriage?
was that same god even INVENTED yet?
love should be the biggest thing in a persons life
not love for your church or your god
but love for yourself and your life
a long time ago people thought there were many gods, the one of the sun, the air, the water, etc.
and today we look at that as fascinating, but very very untrue
i just hope that i can live to the tomorrow where we will be looking at a set a stupid rules and an excuse to hate certain types of people as just as much of a joke in the people that followed their religion so seriously, forgetting that love is what makes the world go round, and hate is whats keeping us from going places we can only dream of
i am 14, a freshman in highschool, and can proudly say im attracted to girls, yes i love to munch on pussy and frankly what does it do to you who i love or what i do in my personal time?
i do not have a sexuality, i do have LOVE for another person though
i do not have a religion, i do have FAITH that our pure, un-polluted souls will live on forever
i do not have one set of rules and values, i do have respect for myself and the HOPE in - not finding myself in one moment influenced by other individuals- but creating myself throughout a lifetime of my own experiences
Nick and Jonathan,
Congratulations on your marriage! I wish you both the best. I am coming up on my 25th anniversary this year (fortunately for me and my husband, the majority doesn’t get squeamish and try to stop my love…) I don’t for one minute take this right of mine for granted. If I weren’t already married, I, too, would protest by not marrying until everyone could. I will continue to fight for your, and millions of others’, rights.
And congratulations on such a brave, articulate, intelligent and poignant letter. It touched me and I hope will touch the hearts of others. Until then, live your life with joy and love.
Amy
There is a book called “What God Has Joined Together: The Christian Case for Gay Marriage” by David G. Myers.
It’s insightful and historical, and breaks down the several verses in the Bible that are used to support the idea that homosexuality is a sin and whether that’s what was really meant during the time the books were written.
If you have the time, I highly recommend reading it.
Much love to you and your husband!
Hi Nick,
Just wanted to send a quick message of encouragement. I loved so much of what you said. While I usually try to avoid labels, in the interest of succinctness, I am a Christian heterosexual. And as a Christian, I am saddened that so many use the name of Christ to simultaneously categorize and reject so many “others.” As a society, we have gone wrong and fallen short in so many ways and sometimes it is hard not to feel defeated. Even though I am not gay, I have experienced persecution because I don’t agree with some widely-accepted doctrine. I could go on and on at length about my theological/philosophical/political ideas but I won’t. I will just say that, like you and so many others, I too have worn the subtly backhanded badge that sounds something like “Oh, you poor,lost sinner.” Sadly, if it were up to many (and perhaps even the majority of) Christians, heaven would be a lonely and desolate place. Fortunately, I believe God has the final say and not Christians. (To this point, I loved the Ghandi quote.)
Your letter shows courage and thoughtfulness and highlights many sad truths about mainstream religion (I choose to say religion because unfortunately, unfounded/illogical ideologies are not confined to just mainstream Christianity). While I sometimes become perplexed and even frustrated by all the ignorant nonsense that is perpetuated these days, I find comfort in knowing that history has shown that I am on the right side and that truth and love prevails when good people are courageous enough to speak up. Continue to fight the good fight…
I especially loved this line: “I’m done with it, with being uncomfortable where I have no cause to be. God made me to do better things than cower in the shadow of those who would use his name to do harm to others.”
It reminds me of why I speak up and speak out, even when my voice seems to fall on deaf ears. All the very best to you and yours!
Nick,
Hello and Congratulations! I found your site via Facebook. I am quite disturbed with the Christians who are posting here. I haven’t read every post, so please do not take that to mean every Christian, some may be spot on, I do not know. Christians–please read this cafefully and with an open heart–What is bothering me so much is the fact that so many are forgeting that their life is their best witness and that hate distroys that witness. I am a Christian and I believe that God clearly states through His Word that the Old Testament is the “Old Covenant” and that the New Testament is the “New Covenant.” He tells us to love as He does, which is with no regard for differences. He also tells us that we each have our own judgement. He will not judge us as groups, He will judge us individually. He also tells us that all sins are equal in His eyes. That being said, this is the time of the “New Covenant” and Jesus set new rules. He told us to love…period. So do it…love…period. He tells you to witness, not force. So stop forcing. He tells you that you are responsible for your own life, not for the lives of others. So be responsible for yours, and let others do the same. Bear fruit, but don’t throw it at others, offer it. And if you live in a glass house, as all of us do, don’t throw stones! If all sins are equal, and you think that homosexuality is a sin, then your (and my) greed, envy, etc. are just as sinful….God gave us free will and it’s not yours to take away…you don’t have that power and neither do I. We DO NOT have the right to judge where another persons relationship with the Lord stands because we ARE NOT a part of it. Please Christians, stop telling others that you have THE relationship with God because it’s just not true. We all have our own relationship with Him. Even those who don’t believe…that in itself is their relationship with Him. JUST LOVE!!
And again I say congratulations to Nick and Jonathon on your marriage and also for not letting others define your relationship with God!
Live a blessed life and follow in Jesus’s footsteps as best as you can,
Cary
You know, I think people who are against gay marriage are missing both the logic gene and the empathy gene.
First, marriage is, in our culture, two things — a civil contract, and a religious sacrament. These two things do NOT have to be conjoined. I have gay friends who were able to celebrate the sacrament of marriage with each other in their house of worship, but were unable to enter into civil contract with each other. Conversely, I have straight friends who were able to enter into civil contract, but chose not to partake in any religious sacrament. If you consider the Constitution, it is clearly a violation of the equal protection clause to prevent two adult citizens from entering into a contract with one another. It is also clearly a violation of religious freedom (which is recognized for hetero couples) to INSIST that they must acknowledge and partake in the religious sacrament.
Second, it is the saddest, meanest thing in the world to tell someone that they cannot be with the one they love. Anyone with the ability to put themselves in the shoes of another should recognize this.
Beautifully written Nick. Congratulations on your marriage.
Congratulations on your marriage, Nick. My wife and I wish you and your husband all the love and happiness we hope for ourselves.
Congratulations on your wedding, Nick! My heart goes out to you!
SAY NO TO HATE! REPEAL PROP 8!
While I entirely support gay marriage, the response to the cousin was no better than the original letter:
“I have never felt compelled to write another person and tell them that I think they are sinful and that their fundamental nature—their very being, in fact—is wrong, even when I do have strong feelings on the matter”, well, except I will blast you here, on the Internet.
The cousin thinks of sacramental marriage, as defined by a church - and many churches do not recognize gay marriage. Their business, in my humble opinion (I will choose not to attend those churches, though!). Only civil marriage should be a matter of right - with all the rights that that confers.
Good luck to you - and congrats on having your marriage recognized. Now, let’s get rid of Prop 8!
Take care,
Morten
Sorry, I disagree on your first point. He didn’t need to send me anything in the first place, and I think when someone writes a letters he implicitly invites a response. While you can debate whether this response should or should not be public, I obviously fall on the public side of the debate when it comes to something that is a shameful viewpoint. This shouldn’t be a private thing; people who use religion to harm others, whether they intend harm or not, should be exposed. If you want to be a bigot, don’t do it quietly behind closed doors. Perhaps the inclusion of the words “until now” would have been appropriate, but I also felt those words to be implicit in my response, as in “I haven’t ever felt I needed to do this before, but your letter prompted my response.”
Furthermore, I don’t attack his fundamental nature, I attack his beliefs, and those are very different things. One is immutable and the other, while deep-seated, is still as changeable as any other decision, no matter how strongly someone feels about it.
But otherwise I very much appreciate your taking the time to comment, for your congratulations, and for your support. We’ll win eventually!
Nick, I can’t thank you enough. I wish you’d submit this as an “op-ed” to Harpers or one of the other magazines to put in their contributors section - it would be so wonderful to have a passionate, articulate and well-educated voice to carry this issue forwards. That said, I can imagine that one of the hardest things about “being gay” must be that you’re always expected to be an activist for “gay” issues - you’re expected to take a stand and fight the fight. I just wanted to say that, no matter how welcome I find your voice, if this is the last thing of yours I ever read, and if you spend the rest of your life building a happy marriage and family, I will respect you just as much.