Of All Things Continuing
One of the cool features of Facebook is the ability to see what your friends are up to through a feature called “news feeds”. Recently, I noticed a friend of mine joined a group called Against Homosexual Adoption which both surprised and startled me. So I decided to venture into this group and see what it was all about.
There’s a little over 100 people joining this group (including those who joined the group to retort against the main message), ranging from students attending prestigious universities in the United States, to high schoolers. Those who have an opinion against homosexual adoption have chosen to quote Biblical references, while those who choose to take the opposite end of the argument quote outside sources such as scientific findings and scholarly reports. This got me thinking: When the argument of homosexuality is presented for debate, it seems like anyone against it usually quotes the Bible while others quote outside references.
I presented this idea to the group on Facebook, and…well, it wasn’t well-received. Kelsey Robertson of Notre Dame and Mary Coran of Fort Carson High School in Colorado, the top repliers to my idea, had some pretty interesting arguments against my point—though none were supported outside the realm of Biblical references, and occasionally they were mixed with latent insults.
Mary Coran is the front insulter of the group, claiming that September 11th was funded by terrorists running the “Iraquian” government (even though our own President said months ago that Iraq had nothing to do with the terror attacks of September 11th), and further stating that homosexuals are indirectly to blame for the terror attacks six years ago due to a lack of divine protection. Mary intermingles her opinions, which have yet to be backed by concrete facts that venture outside the realm of religion, with insults against liberals and personal attacks toward anyone whose views do not align parallel with her own.
Kelsey Robertson attempts to take a more intellectual approach to the issue of homosexuality, arguing that homosexuality is against the moral fiber of the principles the United States was founded upon. However, Kelsey also brings up the issue of homosexuality and the AIDS pandemic, to which she believes that AIDS is a lifestyle disease—the result of immoral choices of Americans, in comparison to emphysema and alcoholism. When asked how she felt after finding out that nearly 600,000 children died from AIDS in 2005, Kelsey responded by saying that those statistics were “not based on the situation in America”. But like Mary, it didn’t take long before Kelsey became frustrated with the opposition to her opinions and began the insults of her own.
The debate in this forum no longer tackles the specific issue of homosexual adoption. Instead, focus has shifted to the larger topic of how homosexuality is viewed in religion, and how the laws of the United States should be backed based not upon concrete establishments, scientific findings, tolerance or equality, but upon mere faith.
But the debate in this forum also exposes an very ugly element that many hoped to eradicate with the civil rights movements of the 20th Century—the element of hate. Here, we have the voices of two women who today exercise every freedom under the United States Constitution as a result of equality reform in areas, such as voting (women’s suffrage). Two hundred years ago, men would argue that God would view women’s rights as an abomination and sin; today, these two women have chosen to exercise these rights and privileges they were once denied as citizens of the United States to oppress fellow human beings based on religious views.
In addition, Mary and Kelsey are bringing to light the issue of how our educational system here in the United States is handling the issue of equality and acceptance across many platforms of human beings. Mary is demonstrating that our high schools are not doing enough to promote peace, tolerance and acceptance of all human beings, regardless of religious or political views, at a crucial point in a person’s development that could shape the way that person interacts as an individual and within society. Kelsey represents a person who was not thoroughly educated on the matters of equality and respect during development and has created personal belief structures that are dangerous to the well-being of human society.
We have here two voices that are extremely dangerous—voices that subconsciously lend support to the radical ideas behind organizations like the Westboro Baptist Church and the Ku Klux Klan. They are voices that promote hate and intolerance toward anyone who can be viewed as different, yet they stem from individuals who forget that just two hundred years ago, they would not have the right to a voice. They are voices that come from individuals, yielding the platform to remind all of us why it is imperative that we teach our children that it is not okay to hate anyone based on their belief, identity, biology or choice. These teachings begin with two groups of people: Those found at home, and those found in our schools.
However, we live in a society these days when even parents can breed to their children hate, as evident with Fred Phelps, members of the KKK and even certain political groups. That is why now more than ever, it is important that we reach out to our educational system and demand changes in curriculum to provide the future of tomorrow the necessary conditioning, not in hate, but of acceptance and understanding. When these ideals become institutionalized in our educational systems, they will breed children of tomorrow who will not persecute their peers based on sexual orientation, or gun them down in the streets based on the color of their skin, but who will instead become politicians who can make social changes for equality and lawyers who will fight to protect those changes.
When we can make these developments in our educational system that produce the results of an entirely new agenda, only then can we continue the steps forward to Martin Luther King, Jr.’s dream of children who are not judged on the color of their skin, the orientation of their biology or the choices of their lives, but rather on the content of their character. And hopefully, we can walk past that dream to a world where people are not judged at all.
I'm a 21-year-old technology, music and local media blogger from Sacramento, California.
February 21st, 2007 at 12:07 pm
Matthew, as you know, I’m involved in another website (http://www.stophate.us) which has tried to talk about a lot of these things. As you’re writing here, it’s not just an issue with homosexuality. It comes out in innumerable ways. If you wanted to see a very bad example of a very personal hatred, you wouldn’t need to go much further than the attacks on Shawn Horbeck, the St. Lousi boy who was kidnapped at 11, and found at the beginning of January.
In the United States, (and here in Canada), the connection between religion and hatred of gays is so marked that it’s easy to think that one necessarily leads to the other. In that form, its a lot like anti-semitism. their are people who are conscientiously convincedt aht active homosexuality is not God’s wish, but have no hatred or dislike of people who are homosexual, and even actively homosexual. Then there are those who really do hate people who are homosexual, and use alleged religious belief to justify their hatred. They’re two very different things, although when you’re on the receiving end, it may not always be easy to tell the difference.
Against this, we have to consider the records of societies with different or no religious cultures. It turns out, specifically to homosexuals, that their behaviour isn’t any better. The record of atheistic states or militantly secular ones is not encouraging. Incidentally, I wouldn’t necessarily suggest this is an argument against atheism or decularism. I think it is an example of a basic human failing which can use the best iof things as a cloak to do the worst of things.
Moreover, it is an attitude which can be turned in ANY DIRECTION immediately. In the U.S. of A. , what could be used against blacks gets turned against gays. Or, for that matter, effete latté drinkers on the left Coast, who redneck crackers in Mississippi. same thing, but different targets.
Looking at some of the attacks on Shawn Hornmbeck, which remind me a lot of the personal attacks on Matthew Shepard and his family, I think I can identify some common traits driving this state of mind.
There are some people who are not happy unless they’re unhappy, and wish everybody to share in their unhappiness. At bottom, this is what I think drives fred Phelps. he actually DOES wish to hurt people as much as he possibly can. It’s a more comon thing than most of us realize.
There are people who take the view that, however poor or downtrodden they may be,
there’s always somebody else whom you can look down upon. In Jim Crow days, it wasn’t the old Southern gentry and elites who were virulently anti-Black (not that they were favourable, but they weren’t unreasonable, either) , but the poor whites, many of whom were nearly as much excluded from anything as Blacks. But only “nearly”. Any White was better than any Black. That got easily applied to Jews, Catholics, etc., and it gets applied against Mexicans and gays now.
The ones who really interest me are the ones who seem to feel their way of showing their own righteousness and self-worth is by tearing someody else down. I think you’ll find that they’re peple who have a basic need to tell others how to live their lives. There’s a good deal of control freakery about it. I think there can be an element of trying to deny smething within oneself.
That’ might give you a few ideas to work with. meantime, matthew, with the two ladies, you could usefull remind them of Maccagno’s law: “she who throws mud loses ground.” In the end, it’s true. We all do it, but for some, it seems to be a way of verbally bullying your way over everybody.
February 21st, 2007 at 1:41 pm
Matthew, while on one hand I’m very curious to follow up on the links you posted here (brilliant post and comment by Mr. Patrick there) it’ll have to be put off a bit. This (and really any sort of discrimination) is a pet peeve to say the least, and I should probably do something with my day other then want to kick the asses of anyone who looks at anyone else funny.
Nothing disgusts me more then people who choose to pick things apart and decide that they are better then someone else (on an individual or group basis) just because they think they have the right to do so. I firmly believe that homosexual people should have every right and privilege of heterosexual people. My father on the other hand- he feels homosexual behavior is on par with pedophilia, and bestiality.
How he can compare a consensual, healthy relationship between two people with a non-consensual, by-force relationship I don’t know and will never understand.
I also don’t understand how it is that while we are suppose to have the freedom to our religion and beliefs in this country, so many people fall back on the argument that something is wrong because it doesn’t match up with what Christianity preaches. I understand that most people in this country are Christians, and I understand that as the majority the opinion of homosexuality being wrong because “God says so,” but it’s not something I can accept.
It’s been how many years since we’ve abolished slavery? And how many years since women became full-righted people? But the slate is always tilted towards something, and away from something else. And someone is always threatened by what they don’t understand or refuse to try to understand.
One of my biggest dislikes of religion in general is that it gives too many people a veil to hide behind and ignore that which they do not understand. I think that only helps to breed the hate as well.
February 21st, 2007 at 4:59 pm
Like young and demanding children look to their mothers for help, we look to government to solve all of our problems.
Regardless of your view on homosexuality (something I personally don’t believe exists, more on this later), the government is not the institution I want to see create change in the moral fibers and tolerance levels of this country. Children are to be raised by families, not a village, i.e. government. It is a dangerous idea to ask government to create the list of morals we should adhere to. Government exists to protect the innocent, prosecute the evil, and defend liberty.
If we live in a free country, then we must accept free thought and exchange thereof. Some people have really stupid ideas on plenty of things. Sexual orientation and religious beliefs are two of those things on which people disagree, and we must accept this. Would you rather live in a country where we are free to hate than in one where we are told how to feel?
The religious argument has no bearing on my opinions about homosexuality. I believe in the “to each his own” philosophy of libertarianism. Government should keep out and let people live their lives. The same government Matthew seems to look to for creating social change is the same government which refused such movement for hundreds of years. So if expediency is your primary goal, government is your last effort.
As far as sexuality is concerned, I believe it is man-made. We are not born heterosexual, homosexual, or anything in between. We are born sexual creatures with urges and feelings. Our sexual orientation, I believe, is defined not by the urges we accept, but by those we suppress. Based on this logic, no one is 100 percent gay or straight. It’s impossible and illogical. Since human existence has moved away from the animalistic procreation goals and toward individual relationships and happiness, humans have begun to allow their other urges to surface. Someone who is gay pursues the feelings they have for people of the same sex and suppress those they have for the opposite, and the opposite is true for heterosexuals. The choice does not lie in which urges we seek, but those we suppress. We all have the same urges, we just only act on certain ones.
While that really doesn’t address the problem of religious views attacking unorthodox sexual orientations, I do believe it is a central question in any debate about the concept of homosexuality, etc. Does the Bible (and I am not completely convinced it does) hate homosexuality because of the urges they pursue, or because homosexuals aren’t married (premarital sex and adultery are also condemned in the Bible) and their actions are not leading to the creation of a child. If Catholics believe sex should only occur when trying to procreate, then their angst toward homosexuality is understandable, because no matter how hard two women try they won’t form a fetus.
We have to understand the core of the dislike toward homosexuality, both historically and in the modern sense. Once we know this, then the debate can truly be held and arguments generated.
But finally, as a friendly reminder, don’t look to government to solve social problems. Don’t look to the education system, the court, the politicians. It’s not their place; social values are born and upheld in a family.
February 22nd, 2007 at 7:16 am
It is a shame that people have so many hang-ups when it comes to sex. It is because of these hang-ups and the lack of knoledge that people have about Homosexuality that create most of the problems.
Homosexual people can have children of their own. So it completely confuses me when other people want to stop them from adopting unwanted children. I am sure that not all children up for adoption come from Heterosexual parents.
I don’t think that Gay people are doing enough to inform the public about homosexuality. Maybe there should be special centers where prominent Gay people can hold seminars and educate the public. There are many people who still think that pedophilia is a Homosexual thing. They could not be more wrong.
I’m going to share something with you Mathew that I have not done so with anyone else. Maybe one day I will do a post on it. I am adopted that you know by having read my blog. My Father that is the one who adopted me is Gay. He has been in the closet all his life. My mother totally dominates him and he is a very gentle man. I couldn’t love him more. When I was growing up he did everything a straight father does. He took me to ball games; he enrolled me in sports and so on. I don’t feel that I have suffered by having a Gay father on the contrary. I think I have benefited.
I am just sad that my father never found the courage to leave my mother and pursue what comes natural to him.
I don’t know how to do the link back to a post thing. But in my blog I wrote a post about crazy parents. I talk a little about them there, although I don’t reveal my father’s sexual preference. Read it if you find the time.
February 22nd, 2007 at 12:06 pm
Gregg’s comments are interesting, and well put. But they also require some response.
I haven’t been part of the other discussion, but as I understand it, the original issue is adoption of children. How does this come to happen?
Well, there’s many ways, aren’t there? To tkae one example, parents die. You may have a young, single mother whois well aware that she can’t possibly look after a child, but is alos opposed to abortion. There are the cases where the alleged “family” were extreme threats to the life and security of the child. Of these alternatives (there’s others), the third is the only one where, from Gregg’s point of view, governments are interfereing in others’ lies. When we’re speaking of adoptions, we are dealing with a situation where the family is not there. Something else has to take its place, and adoption is the closest replication to biological family there is.
The idea that “family” means the nuclear family, the mother, father and children, is really a post-World war 2 idea. In fact the proportion of “traditional” families in that sense of the word among society was pretty much what it was in 2000 as it was in 100. The circumstances have changed a great deal, and so have the causes, but the end rtesult is the same.
What we do NOT have are the extended family arrangements of old, or the intimate ciommunity arrangements which did apply circa 100. The more normal porcess of “adoption” would have bene the placing of children with other relatives, whether grandparents, uncles and aunts, or cousins. And you would not be surprised if the result was being placed with a couple of maiden sisters, or a couple of bachelor unlces. Sounds like a same-sex couple of some form, does it not?
Incidentally, that does raise an issue where the opponents of same-sex marriage do ahve a point, although once it’s recognized, it’s a fairly easy one to get around. It is entirely true that childtre do grow up best with both a male and fermale role model in their lives. The maiden or widowed aunts or uncles would have been well aware of it. So is any single parent. One does have to bring some role model who isn’t part of the family - usually a relative or neighbour or friend, but there is a real need for “Big Brothers and Sisters” or “Uncles-at-large”. Unfortunately, I’;ve had too much personal expereince of this reality not to be aware of it.
That excursion aside, in 1900, villages did raise children when knship couldn’t manage it. That was a standrd situation in the rural communities of old, and the kind of city neighbourhood Jane Jacobs described in her books in city life.
Both are community responses, and government’s role did not come imto play, unless there were good reasons why the “adoption” had to be legally recognized.
So, why has governent’s role changed? because society has changed. People are much better able to move around: you aren’t tied down to one place or community all your life. Extended family relatinships are difficult to maintain, and the sense of community can be very much lacking. In places where you see half the people move in a single year, any community relationship is going to be difficult to build or maintain. This does not mean that the communitites have lost their values: it does mean that public agencies have to assume much of the role which communities or extended families used to carry out.
Werepeople perfect, I suppose I’d be a “moral force” anarchist. if we were perfect, or at least in the primal innocence we were supposed to have in the Garden of Eden, there would be no need for government as we know it, since all would know exactly how to balance rights and responsibilities, how to live according to one’s lights without interfering in the way of others, and so on. But that’s not the human condition (I don’t subscribe to the view of human depravity, either - I think there’s a lot about us which makes us redeemable). We’re a long way short of perfection, and it shows.The most die-hard libertarian will admit the need for police and armies, if only to protect poroperty. To my observation, the sort of society they imagine, although admirable in many respects, would require very much larger numbers of police, and much larger armed forces than we have now to get the same result.
I should perhaps mention that in religious terms, I’m a catholic, and I do acvcept the teachings of my church, including those on homosexualioty. What I do know is that others have other beliefs, which they are living to the best they can do, that people do not choose their sexual orientation (by the way, I laregly agree with Gregg’s comments there, but not entriely) , and that the sexual drive is a very powerful factor in life - stronger for some than others. In these things
February 23rd, 2007 at 2:30 am
Gregg, Debar and John Patrick, thanks very much for your comments and contributions. They are being read by quite a few people who have taken interest in this topic, and your additional contributions help further open up this topic for debate, but more importantly, for conversation.
JAT, your comment was initially marked as SPAM, which is why it wasn’t made available on the blog immediately. I really apologize for this, and I thank you so much for opening up to the readers of this blog on an issue that is personal and close to your heart. I hope that one day, our society can shift a little so that your father can come out with ease and be the person he has hidden all these years.
February 23rd, 2007 at 9:13 am
Hola, Senor K—–!
Your writing skills have gotten extremely incredible! You were always an adept writer, but . . . WOW! Keep it up! You make many sound arguments against the bigotry and hatred that too many people show against gays and lesbians, and you present them very well. Your site is also very nice, too! GREAT job! :-)
(Note: The last name was taken out by the author out of privacy concerns)
February 25th, 2007 at 11:46 pm
Hm. Just thought I’d come on here and “defend” myself — though I don’t think my comments on Facebook require any defense. I certainly don’t regret any of them.
I am truly bothered by people saying that I “hate” homosexuals. My best friend is gay, and I love all of God’s children. I only have disdain for the act of homosexuality, not for the homosexuals themselves.
I sincerely believe that homosexuality is bad for this country, but it’s not the ONLY bad influence on our society. People seem to think that I obsess over homosexuality, saying “there are bigger issues out there”. I acknowledge that, and I am an activist on many other issues as well. For example, I am actively opposed to abortion, divorce, adultery, pornography, abuse, drugs, and alcohol.
I have the right to vocally protest whatever I see fit to protest, and I do so — loudly. =) So deal with it, and don’t call me a bigot. Thank you!
February 25th, 2007 at 11:55 pm
Kelsey, I appreciate you defending your stance, though. Feel free to comment again if you’d like, as long as you do so respectfully.
In addition, you said you have the right to protest loudly and that we should “deal with it”. You’re right, we should deal with it—and I choose to deal with it by exposing the opinions that are fueled by hate. That’s my way of dealing with a problem that I feel is present in our country: Not the threat of homosexual adoption, but the pandemic of hate that could be stopped.
February 26th, 2007 at 11:04 am
It really makes me laugh that what you call “hate”, I call logic.
I don’t hate. I have concern for this country.
February 26th, 2007 at 3:47 pm
Kelsey, you could call a duck a horse, and it’d still be a duck.
February 28th, 2007 at 10:26 am
Ihaven’t takne part in the other discussion, so anything I could say about it would be at best second-hand. But there are some things about the recent excahnge between Kelsey and Matthew which might be useful to discuss.
Moderrn technology is a wonderful thing: we can now fail to communicate instantly! There’s so many nuances which get lost in writing to each other, rather than speaking. However, the care in choosing words isn’t what it was in days of snail mail, when the passage of time between sending and receiving was a given. We’re more likely to write as we talk, but all sorts of things - tone of voice, body language, facial expressions - get lost. I do know that some discussions I and another fellow have had both personally and on the ‘nethave looked harsh and argumentative on message boards, where they were entirely agreeable in the flesh.
Maybe that applies here. I don’t know. I’m asking.
Kelsey did touch on a point I raised in my first comment. There is an important difference between plain dislike, amounting to hate, and a conscientious belief that somebody may be acting in ways which are not good. This, of clurse, is summarized by the phrase “love the sinner, hate the sin.” It’s a pharse which I try to avoid, although it’s actually a very sound principle. I avoid it because it becomes a cant phrase we fall into the trap of using to describe what we ought to do, rather than what we do and live. People who are actually living that way rarely have to roclaim the fact: their lives and their way of treating others speak for them.
St. Francis of Assissi once said, “Preach the Gospel at all times. Use words only if you really must.”
I share Kelsey’s views on, for example, abortion. A century hence, if humanity’s still around, I imagine people will look at us in the same way we look at Americans on the matter of slavery a century and a haldf ago. However, if I’m going to talk about it, I would start by saying a lady who is very near and very dear to me had one, and it’s something we talked about at great length, in terms of the real human feelings involved by people in that boat. Clearly, I think people make bad choices, but I still have to be aware that I have to respect themand accept them as they are, and not as I would wish them to be. I think it’s the only way that I could expect respect or acceptance from others. “Charity”, St. Paul once wrote, “is the bond of perfection.” St. Paul, of course, would admit to you that he could get pretty excited, and not always able to live up to that standard - I think it would be fair to think that he would have been one of the least favourite dinner guests in the Mediterranean (he did rather tend to go on, and on, and on - even more than me!). But he meant it.
In a more worldly context, I have found much political wisdom in one of President Lincoln’s speeches. I’ll quote a small part of it:
“…it is not much in the nature of man to be driven to anything; still less to be driven about that which is exclusively his own business….If you would win a man to your cause, FIRST convince him that you are his sincere friend….Assume to dictate to his judgemnt, or to command his action, or to mark him as one to be shunned and despised, and he will rereat within himself…you shall no more be able to pierce him, than to penetrate the hard shell of a tortoise with a rye straw.” (Speech to the Washington Temperance Society, February 22, 1842).
Expressions of displeasure come more easily and naturally to all of us. It’s hard work to prevent a disagreement from becoming disagreeable, or to prevent it from declining into name-calling. But we can do better than that, and we all do ourselves a favour by so doing.
March 1st, 2007 at 7:40 pm
Matthew, thank you for being an activist and for making a difference.