The evangelical media is silent on recent scientific research into sexual orientation, according to Dr Warren Throckmorton.
The Grove City College psychology professor says his Christian audience routinely confirms there’s a blackout on up-to-date information on sexuality in the Christian media:
They know there is no gay gene but they don’t know about the significant brain, perceptual and cognitive differences reported within the past six years by various researchers around the world. … Many evangelicals believe homosexuality is due to abuse. Some will say with confidence that gays are more likely to be abused than straights but they are unaware of the actual magnitudes of difference. … Many evangelicals I speak to think that change of orientation is pretty common and the evidence is being suppressed by the gay-friendly media.
Throckmorton blames the “culture war” for this dearth of facts on the state of sexual orientation research. Read the full article: The Evangelical Blackout of Research on Sexual Orientation.
“Throckmorton blames the “culture war” for this dearth of facts on the state of sexual orientation research.”
It isn’t the culture war. It is the assumption of moral, scientific, intellectual, and spiritual superiority on the part of a Certain Class of Christian. It is a refusal to hear anything in contradiction to your “received” “wisdom” (double quotes intentional). It is the belief that sexual matters are the most important matters in the world to god, coupled with a positive obsession about the sex lives of others. And I have every confidence that it is also about the obsessions of homo-hating-homo’s and wanna-be-straight-but-ain’ts.
The culture was is merely the expression of these, and a means of fund rasiing and political power for a siginificant number of thre anti-gays.
@Ben in Oakland
Wait. Don’t both sides in the culture war (or a “certain class” on both sides) assume moral, scientific, intellectual, and spiritual superiority? I’m on your side, Ben, really I am. I just think the “received” “wisdom” you write about and the obsession with sex is the stuff the culture war is made of. I think maybe you and Throckmorton are saying the same thing.
I find it sad that more and more, people are filtering their news through internet and broadcast outlets that favor their own biases. And journalists, if they may be called that, are only too willing to go along with a controlling editorial bias. Shame on those journalists whose ethical responsibility it is to try to present the news in an unbiased way. Ignoring important new research on homosexuality (regardless of what side it appears to favor) is just wrong, especially now when important laws and precedents are being set.
Religious “conservatives” know they are losing/have lost the culture war. It is only a matter of time till those younger than 50 exercise the greater political power. It’s fairly clear from the Republican presidential polls that even Republicans have abandoned the Religious Right. Witness Rick Perry’s “Hail Mary” pass to them in his recent ads. If they want to hide their faces in the sand, I guess we can’t stop them. Still, there is no ignorance worse than willful ignorance. It deserves to be called stupid, and that’s the polite word for it.
David, a good question. I don’t have time to write at the moment, though I will take a few minutes.
You wrote: ” Don’t both sides in the culture war (or a “certain class” on both sides) assume moral, scientific, intellectual, and spiritual superiority?”
The simple answer is no, because it assumes that both sides of any dispute are in some way morally equivalent. One need only think of Hitler’s desire for “lebensraum”, or the 2000 year old hate-fest known as anti-semitism, to see that this isn’t true. The dispute over homosexuality is no different.
When someone declares war on someone else, there are a lot of things I want to know about both parties. Who declared war? Why? What are their justifications and rationales? Are they reality based? Who started the aggression? Was the declaration in response to aggression? What about the methods and the tactics that each side uses? Are the fair? Honorable? Justified? Proportional? And so on.
We gay people did not declare the war. That’s been going on the last 20, 30, 50, 100, 1700, or 2000 years, depending on when you want to start counting. We’re not the ones lying about other people as a matter of course, distorting science, making up stuff, cherry picking and distorting scripture, exploiting fear and hatred, justifying a bad social prejudice as sincere religious belief or god’s will. We’re not starting political campaigns to restrict the rights of others, especially privacy, freedom of religion, and equality before the law. We’re not the ones with our fingers in our ears, ignoring fact, logic, experience, common sense. and compassion. We’re not the ones finding our faith in the fog-filled cherry orchard instead of the clear light of Scripture, when scripture is clear, which it is not in this case.
I personally have no animus towards the right wingnuts– in general. Like a good Christian, i hate their sins of bearing false witness, making shit up (I think that is commandment 9.5), their over weening pride, their hypocrisy , their hate disguised as love, their bigotry dressed up in its sunday-go-to-meetin’-clothes, their fear mongering– all of it.
I think it is quite possible to rate and measure, rather than moral, scientific, intellectual, and spiritual superiority. as far as I can tell, they don’t have it.
There is that popular movie, I think it is Jack Nicholson, I think it is about a military trial. “The truth” he bellows “You can’t stand the truth”
That is how I feel about the anti-gay Christians and any scientific research that shows sexual minorities in any type of a positive way. They just plain don’t want to know the truth.
I hope we win the Prop 8 trial, and soon, then they all can go shove it where the sun don’t shine.
@Ben in Oakland
You know that people are hopping mad when they push the Hitler button. Among those who classify logical fallicies, it’s known jokingly as the “argumentum ad Nazium.”
There are crazies on both sides. But I think the core problem is that the two sides start from different presuppositions.
You see, Ben, I’ve spent a lot of time on the other side of this argument. I was never a fag-hater and never saw any point to the culture war. I spent a lot of years, though, thinking that homosexual behavior is wrong. I was not being pig-headed. I tried to keep up with the latest science as much as possible. I had plenty of internal motivation to change my mind. But I started with presuppositions that led me to the same conclusions that many other Christians reach.
At midlife, though, the pressures for personal integration took on a strength that equalled the pressure for intellectual integrity. I was at an impasse. It took a long time to break through that impasse and I am still putting together the pieces in parts of my life. I was, as they say, highly motivated to change my mind. And it still took years. So I am not surprised when it takes others years to change their minds, others who are not as highly motivated. I don’t think they are bad people for believing as they do. It wasn’t evil that motivated me to think like them for decades.
I do have a sense of betrayal in life, that the received wisdom (there’s that phrase again) did not offer an option for people like me. I played by the rules I had learned. I married. I had kids. I worked hard. So by this point in my life, the rules said, I should be reasonably content, beginning to reap the rewards of faithfulness. Instead, I was exhausted and broken.
My concern is not to correct the mistakes of the past. It is over and gone and can’t be changed. My concern is to help build this new road for coming generations. I believe that being gay and being Christian are not mutually exclusive. Working out how those two things go together is going to take some time, maybe more than my lifetime.
I was quite well aware of the possibility of the hitler problem when I wrote it, but that wasn’t what I was trying to say. Hitler claimed that his reason for invading his neighbors was the Germany needed “living room” (lebensraum). It was a justification based upon nothing whatsoever.
Again, i have no real issue with Christians believing whatever they want to believe about anything, even homosexuality. My issue is strictly with willful ignorance, hypocrisy, and hate far beyond any Scriptural mandates.
I appreciate the struggle that you’ve gone through. i really do. But what could you be faithful to ultimately, except yourself? You said it– personal and intellectual integrity. I can repsect a man who has a vocation, and follows through with it. But he’s not being faithful to the church, he’s being faithful to his inner self. that just coincides with what the church wants for him. What if he had a vocation, but ignored it? What would be the rewards of faithfulness?
Of course being gay and christian are not mutually exclusive, unless you prefer to believe that they are. If there were only one kind of Christianity, that might carry some weight. But there isn’t, and it only carries the weight you are willing to give it.
Just remember, 400 years ago, Christians were burning witches with the same moral certainty that a) witches existed, and b) god didn’t like it, c) the harm they inflicted on 100’s of thousands of innocent women was god’s will…with which they now pursue and defame and decry gay people. Witches (in the minion of satan sense) don’t exist, and never did. I don’t bring these things up to claim the church is evil or to make an argument for atheism. (I’m an it-doesn’t-matter-ist, after all.)
I bring it up to show that the church has claimed expertise when it had none, has claimed authority based upon that imaginary expertise, and worked harm when it claimed to be doing god’s will.
This is no different. And your life so far is the proof of the statement.
@Ben in Oakland
Ben, I completely agree with you in decrying “willful ignorance, hypocrisy, and hate.”
You ask, “But what could you be faithful to ultimately, except yourself?” Well, of course, God, to the best of my understanding and ability. Let’s please not get back into a discussion of the church.
David G, what exactly is the point of your discussion? I get that you feel a need to be an apologist for the Church, and in that endeavor you have — wrongly in my view — claimed equivalence in the claims and actions of both “sides.” I’m just not sure I understand the point you are trying to make here. Perhaps you could give us a summary of some sort, a concise statement of what you mean to accomplish or the point you are trying to make?
Oddly enough, although I don’t know the personalities very well at all who are present here, I believe that I can see the hearts of those who write. I have to say that I most clearly seem to understand what David G is writing about without him having to further explain himself. I guess that it’s because I also could be accused of defending the Church even at cost to myself. Perhaps I would say it this way,” The church is right and I am wrong” if there is a conflict or opposition between me and the church. I have nearly always thought that the church is right regarding my own homosexuality… in fact , that is one of my core beliefs. But that doesn’t stop me from actually admitting that I am still homosexual. And thinking like that has driven me to take steps to find reconciliation with my homosexuality and my Christian faith. And it’s just not an easy reconciliation to achieve. And it might not be possible, truly. That’s what I come up with again and again. I don’t want to compromise what I believe is true, that is, I don’t want to compromise integrity and truth to permit myself free rein to my homosexual impulses and desires. Nor do I want to compromise and damage the integrity of having a homosexual constitution. Nevertheless, I do make those kinds of compromises when desires arise… And this is the struggle. Neither side of the bifurcation within my soul/spirit has won . I live with the tension. I think that this is what David G. is saying in his own way, but I am certainly not trying to advocate for him nor speak for him…. these are strictly my own opinions based upon my own experience.
@David Roberts
I don’t think I brought up the subject of the church in this thread. The Religious Right and the church are not synonymous terms. Far from it.
I accept Throckmorton’s explanation for the lack of coverage of recent science in the “Christian” media. He is saying, it seems to me, that the “Christian” media do not want to publish anything that might undermine their “conservative” position on homosexuality. I perceived Ben as accusing those who participate in “Christian” media of spiritual pride, or in his words, “moral, scientific, intellectual, and spiritual superiority.” Perhaps that is true in some cases, but I don’t think I am in a position to judge the good or evil in the motives of others.
Nothing is gained when those on two sides of an issue call each other names and accuse one another of bad motives. I think the disagreement is adequately explained by looking at the presuppositions that those on either side hold. Those on the Religious Right assume that traditional morality, rooted in traditional religious positions, is the controlling consideration. This is not because they want to thumb their noses at anybody. It is simply what they believe. On the other side, those who support gay rights assume that the controlling consideration is, perhaps, human equality, or science — in any case, something other than traditional morality. From each perspective, those on the other side appear to be threatening the values each holds dear.
If one’s sense of morality sees equality and human rights as the measure of goodness, the Religious Right appears to be immoral. If, on the other hand, one’s sense of morality sees traditional morality based in traditional religious beliefs as the arbiter of goodness, gay rights appear to be promoting immorality.
In today’s world, it is critically important for us to be able to set aside our views for a moment and try to see the world from the other’s perspective. If we cannot do that, it seems to me our American democracy is doomed. Uncompromising positions and an unwillingness to hear one another sympathetically will make us a factionalized and ungovernable people.
This was at least one of my points. Hope the explanation helps a little, at least.
@Tim Warner
Tim, you eloquently describe the impasse I found myself in, too, and the difficulty of the struggle to reconcile orthodox Christianity with being gay. I think it is difficult for many individualistic Westerners to comprehend that some of us take our primary identity not from our own desires but from the larger communion of the Church, and that this can be life-giving. (This individualism even pervades the evangelical churches.) The ex-gay movement was one attempt to bring reconciliation by sacrificing our gayness. But, of course, that failed. Now what? I hear you.
@David G.
Such an esoteric, sanitized perspective belies the reality of the situation. One could have made a similarly worded summary of the African American struggle decades ago, and yet it would have utterly failed to communicate the reality of the situation. Note that this point does not depend on your agreement that racial civil rights and gay civil rights are part of the same collective (though I certainly do).
Let me propose with all sincerity and with no personal malice, that attitudes like those you exhibit are a major reason the Church has been able to treat various groups, including gays, so inhumanely over the years. She does not need excuses, but rebuke. Throughout history, when the Christian Church gains a position of authority, She has a tendency to become corrupt, even sadistic. The Church works best as a minority, under persecution. When that is not the case, She requires strong and diligent watching — especially by those who are part of Her.
It is one thing to try to be the adult in the room, but some issues require more than a dispassionate eye. Major sections of the Church have slandered gays as a whole, told unspeakable lies about us, twisted science to accommodate questionable beliefs, used considerable resources to deny us basic rights and — sometimes tacitly sometimes not — supported our social castigation and death. One does not have to be frothing at the mouth to recognize that these things are wrong, even evil. We can’t allow excuses for that behavior.
No one is asking you to hate the Church, but you will not get very far in discussions here by denying basic, historical fact. If we excuse bad acts just because people think that their interpretation of scriptures is correct, we will end up excusing far too many atrocities. The fact is, many in the Church are still at it. And if we try to make some sort of false equivalence between the anger and reactions of the oppressed, against their oppressors, then we do more injustice to the former, and we enable the latter
That said, I am completely sympathetic to the sometimes almost insurmountable task of reconciling a fundamentalist Christian mentality with being gay. It is something that nearly killed me, and I’ve relived it many times through the lives of others. It is something that is not easily understood by those who do not find themselves in similar situations. Years after that reconciliation I found that Scripture made far more sense when I dropped the demand that it must be inerrant from end to end, a view that feels more like “milk than meat” to me now. I don’t require others to believe as I do, but it certainly makes for a more interesting faith.
I stand rebuked.
BTW, I am not and have never been fundamentalist.
@David Roberts & David G.
Excuse me for trying to intervene. But, Roberts, whether we as the gay community like it as a whole, America is in a coming out process. One that takes time, and the ones at the tail end are in fact those at the center of the religious conservative group. (I know ground breaking stuff here.) So, treating it like it is, maybe we can give them some time to come around to the realization that they’re fighting a losing battle with this one? I do have to agree with David G. that all of the name calling and hate from both sides gets old, especially for someone with religious backgrounds in the gay community.
“No one is asking you to hate the Church, but you will not get very far in discussions here by denying basic, historical fact. If we excuse bad acts just because people think that their interpretation of scriptures is correct, we will end up excusing far too many atrocities. The fact is, many in the Church are still at it. And if we try to make some sort of false equivalence between the anger and reactions of the oppressed, against their oppressors, then we do more injustice to the former, and we enable the latter.”
Taking an un-biased view hardly is enabling or even accepting what one side says is true. I think all that David was trying to say is that both sides have a lot to lose, so both sides are going to fight.
When it comes down to the core of the matter, I see it like this:
From someone who has been at one point in one’s life a conservative christian and now a liberal gay christian I have seen and lived both sides of the argument. There are flaws in both sides. The main being hate and the inability to understand or listen.
After accepting my homosexuality as a gift rather than a curse I knew and still know that my sexual orientation evokes very strong feelings in a lot of people. So wether it be feelings of understanding or feelings of repulsion I try to treat everyone the same, with respect for their view and with a gentle heart and listening ear. Because what ultimately brings a conflict to an end and a community together is a bridge between. Also, when its my turn to answer for the things I have done, I think it best that I gave everyone the coat off my back and the food on my table, not just the ones I could relate to.
– “Do not take from a man his religion, because for some it is all he has.”
@Stephen W.
How on earth can one be “un-biased” about injustice? And what is hateful about recognizing injustice and calling out those who perpetrate it? There is no propaganda here, you are barking up the wrong tree.
@Stephen W.
Oh yes, grace and compassion there. People disagree all the time here, but they generally have a reasonable argument to defend their position.
I’m sorry, Stephen, but you honestly are clueless — about the reality of this issue and about what this site has been doing for the past decade. And your comment above is very telling of your true position.
Moderator note: David G. and Stephen W., you are asked to stop commenting until you contact me privately to explain why you appear to be the same person.
Edit: We have been able to clear this up. Stephen W. and David G. appear to be two different individuals. Carry on.
David r. in #13– exactly what I was saying. This goes way beyond religious beliefs or perceived encroachment on moral values.
I’m happy to listen to the other side, but i haven’t heard anything in the last 40 years that goes beyond “the bible says….”. No justification for the lies and the slander, let alone an apology. no explanation why it is impossible for them to extend the same courtesy that they extend to every other religion that rejects the totality of their religious belief, or any other so-called sin, not just the itty-bitty-little-ditty they that says being gay is bad.
David g, if you want to brelieve there is a conflict between being gay and being a Christian, and that this conflict is somehow authorized by god in the face of every other erroneous so-called Christian belief that turned out not to be…
…well, be my guest. but it is a conflict that exists because you accept the validity of its existence. And all that means is that you still buy that being gay is bad and against god’s will.
My teacher used to say, “When you stand in uncertainty, the only way to leave it is to choose.” You can choose that being gay is good and not a contravention of god’s will. There are lots of reasons to believe that, especially the hundreds of thousands (according to Exodus) of ex-gays who failed (not according to exodus, of course) to actually be ex-gay.
Or you can believe it is a sin and that you must stop for the sake of your soul. but you don’t believe that; you just want to.
What you’re trying to do is both. and that is costing you. as i said in a previous posting, the problem is not being gay. The problem is self-hatred that you have been oh-so-carefully taught. Deal iwth that, and this conflict will disappear.
I agree, an it’s a lousy spot to be in — I know from experience. But I suspect it’s partly an occupational hazard that after working to call out so many lies being told in the name of God, that I have very little patience left on this score. And the new meme of bridge-building, which has a place but which so many seem to misunderstand, has brought a wave of equivalence which is only making matters worse (as this latest discussion illustrates to some extent).
Thank, you david. I really don’t have much time to write today, but this is what I have been saying all along.
I also agree that the idea of bridge-building has its place, but that it frequently is merely a means to convince the poor sinners to come to the authoritarian moralizers without the latter having to wear out any shoes in the process. And worse, as you note, it is used as a cover to create false equivalence on these two moral issues.
Were David g. my friend– and I had one in just his position many years ago– I would say: “IF being gay and having a full human life as a gay man is a sin, displeasing to god, and damages your relationship with god, then if you truly believe in god and doing his will, you have no choice in this. You must be a celibate gay man. And if you’re lucky, maybe you can also give up all thoughts of love, sex, romance, and family. And maybe that’s what God wants for you, though i myself would be asking him to explain that to me in clearer terms than “sleep the sleep of a woman” and “abusers of themselves with mankind.”.
Or, you can choose to believe that like so many things, what you hear is not god talking, only his followers, and they have been mortally, morally wrong time and time again. so maybe you should listen to that small voice that tells you to love yourself, because i suspect that that is god telling you what he wants for you, that it is possible to be a happy, out, proud gay man AND living a Christian life.
But this choice isn’t up to god, this choice is up to you. Leaving it up to god is just a way of avoiding having to be responsible for your own choices. It’s just another form of pascal’s wager, and it is as morally and intellectually irresponsible as the original.
I left out…
…and it is the tool that your self-hatred uses to punish you for being a human being.
I dont mean to be misunderstood so to clarify… I dont believe that being gay is a sin, I may have at one point but I just chalked that up to being young and impressionable. I think if I was to try to paint the broadmost picture of what I think about the whole situation it would be as such:
Even though the church has wronged a lot of people in various ways with the entire ex-gay fiasco, (and other monumental lapse of judgements throughout the years) I still feel that religion has its place in modern society. Do I agree with conservative christian views? Not even remotely. But will I try to tell them they need to think the way I do or they’re wrong? Nope, because then I’d be just as wrong and hurtful as they are. Maybe its just me taking some pride in being the bigger man in it all, maybe im just naive.
And with that said the part that you wont see me budge on is the fact that religion and politics have no place with eachother. The biggest flaw in all of this is that the US as a nation has held the interests of some as the interests of all.
And also to clear up anything on David G.’s end, he and I are partners. Therefore a lot of what you’ve said in the last posts, although insightful, aren’t the way David thinks or lives his life.
@David Roberts and Ben in Oakland
Gentlemen, I am so glad you have figured me out. I would never have known what I thought if you hadn’t told me.
I came here naively thinking this was a place for former ex-gays and their friends. I am saddened to learn this is a place for confirming one author’s jaded views. By jaded, I am referring to what you, David R., have acknowledged as an “occupational hazard” of your writing here. It’s your blog. You will have the last word. As a proponent of critical thinking, I am stunned by your absolute unwillingness to consider any view other than your own. Whatever you may claim, I and those like me are clearly unwelcome. I wish you had told me that several days ago. It would have spared me (and Stephen) your antagonism and ridicule.
May you find peace in your journey.
@David G.
Pot, meet kettle
This is not a place for the kind of mental masturbation that some people, apparently you, call “critical thinking.” It is, first and foremost, a place to shine light on what ex-gay and related groups are doing and the very real harm it causes.
You came here with a clear attitude and agenda yourself, one that claims that the pro-gay side of this issue is too harsh, whining and complaining about every little thing, and making “everything about us.” You disguised this by claiming dispassionate, unbiased and equal concern about both sides. Still, your own agenda kept peeking through and was all too familiar to those of us who have been around here a while.
If you had come here with an intellectually honest and open argument, you could have made your case without the pretense and gotten a genuine, if heated, debate. Instead you were called on your deception and the only place you had to go was this sanctimonious dribble.
Yeah, I would say this was not the place you expected it to be, though for reasons other than you seem to recognize.
@Stephen W.
What you have said in this last comment seems honest and I can understand it, even agree with most of it. However, this one comment I would like to ask about:
Would that be the case no matter what position the Church holds or would you refrain from correction only in this particular case about homosexuality? To be more concise, would you ever tell the Church they are wrong? This isn’t hypothetical, I’m talking about real, historical positions.
You admit this may be your own sense of wanting to be above it all or naiveté, which I think is honest and introspective. I tried to do the same by admitting that one can become jaded dealing with so much hate coming from so many people who claim to speak for God.
Well, David, that’s up to you. Doesn’t anyone study transactional analysis any more? Has anybody read I’m OK, You’re OK? It is the truest, most consistent theory of human behaviour that I’ve ever seen. I don’t know you at all. But I have certainly heard a great deal of what religious gay people, both accepting and rejecting, have had to say. I’ve listened to gays, anti-gays, ex-gays, and ex-ex-gays carefully for forty years, especially the last four or five on many blogs like this. Certain patterns tend to emerge that lead me to certian conclusions. I could be wrong, but I really don’t think so.
I’m certainly willing to consider another view besides my own. But I’m not willing to consider one that basically boils down to “I think god said it. I agree with it insofar as I understand it and it fits my preconceived notions. That settles it.”– any more than I would consider the propositon that the earth is flat or that jews are of the devil. (That’s the word-o’-god, too, you know). Especially when that view is taken out of all context and all proportion, and used to justify a great deal of harm done to people who don’t deserve it. That you believe the church deserves excuses instead of rebuke for yet another maelstrom of mistaken misdirected malevolence says a great deal (to me at least) about how you see yourself. It’s very much the abused wife syndrome.
David, if you truly believe that god takes a dim view of homosexuality, and if your truest desire is to serve god, then what on earth is the problem? What’s stopping you? I absolutely encourage you to take it to the logical conclusion. You have been trying for years to come to the place of 100% acceptance of yourself– what I would certainly call self love. You don’t want to believe there is anything wrong with you or your love for Steve, because it feels right and natural and proper. At the same time, you also want to take that developing love for yourself and place the blame for that self-acceptance on your sinful rebellious nature, rejecting the clear (hah!) word-o’-god on the subject, yet another brick in the wall of self hatred, instead of just stepping out into the light as a free man, if you don’t mind the mix of metaphors. (It’s late and I’m tired).
But you don’t want to do that. That’s why you’re here.
There’s something holding you back from progressing to that logical conclusion, something that keeps you in the place of continuing to condemn your homosexuality. I’d be willing to bet that thing is self-hatred. That’s what transactional analysis teaches. You either love yourself or you don’t, and your actions in your life tend to confirm that position. It’s what tells you to take the emerging love for yourself and turn it into sinful rebelliousness, yet another strike against you, something else preventing you from serving god.
Like I said, I don’t know you. But I’ve certainly seen this a great deal in my 61 years, especially around being gay. If you deal with your possible self hatred– the part that says to you that somehow the church has some kind of an excuse for its most egregious actions against gay people and countless others– then I suspect your issues around being gay are going to disapear as well.
5 cents, please.
Wow. It would seem we have the three brothers here, an analogy where the bigger brother (the str8 “church” that hates gays) and the littlest brother (the proud gay fighting for survival from being attacked and hated) has an ongoing pissing match, and the middle brother sees both sides, lives his life as he pleases, and hopes everyone can just somehow get along cuz well, we gotta live together. I know it well, I’m the little brother, though after much hair pulling and rageful angsts, am moving to a happier place.
“The church”, bottom line, is a sexually abusive predatory monster TO THOSE THAT ALLOW THE CHURCH TO RULE OVER THEIR SEXUAL IDENTITY. Gays who are affected by the church are classic sexual molestation victims. But some get hit and some don’t, and I really am not sure why. In my case I grew up Catholic, went to Catholic school and was even an alter boy, yes of course I drank the wine, but never allowed sexual-overtake to be the case for me. My sexuality was entirely my own and I never even thought giving it away was even possible, so it never even entered my mind and therefore never happened. Now, my str8 middle brother, the mediator “sees both sides” guy, was different, he yielded. It took years to get over a priest telling him masturbation would lead to his hands falling off. So this priest sexually abused him mentally and emotionally, and it had the same devastating effects as someone having been physically sexually molested. He had severe sexual dysfunction with women, and a very low opinion of himself and his sexuality. My eldest str8 brother was majorly promiscuous and had a few gay encounters and of course lost his wife over dalliances with other women. He was a killer if you snubbed him, completely fixed in many corrupt attitudes, with a very cavalier go screw-off attitude, much like the church has for just about everyone that does not think like “it”, paying zero attention to little brother web sights like Exgaywatch and Truthwinsout who call big bro out on his BS.
The funny thing is, the little brother always sees the truth of things because he got to watch all while growing up, and wins through acts of justice because he learned what’s right. The underdog is always right because he gets steam rolled when he shouldn’t for telling the truth and being who he is. And little brother, just like Jesus against the Sanhedrans, got steam rolled by big brother, a lot. So does middle brother but he seems to roll with the punches from both big and little brother’s intense antics.
The big brother eventually loses because he can’t see that he is too fixated on corrupt data and therefore starts cracking at the knees and ends up tumbling much like Goliath. It’s happening now in full Digicolor with govt and religion. Is it any wonder the leader of this sight is a David? Really, it isn’t. He’s a warrior. He hasn’t been pulling his slingshot back for perfect aim at Alan Chamber’s third eye for nothing. He has a mission and he will be the victor, and all will thank him for it in the end. Every gay person who has church vs sexuality has David and Goliath going on inside.
So we all have our placements in this triad. The little brother is all about justice and humanitarian efforts and will fight to the death for balance and rational thought. Big brother is all about money control and facade, is irrational filled with corrupt data running on tunnel vision with absolutely no care for it’s rational opponents, is unwise unclear and will always lose in the end. The middle brother is the glue that holds all together and sees it from all sides with calming effect keeping the entire thing from falling into permanent annihilation through nuclear war and atomic fallout. Yep, no one wants Grandma to die in a nuclear holocaust between her grandchildren.
Ben in Oakland, just an inset; the way to loving the self is through removing corrupt data in the memory banks, which is what I do for others for a living. Most people think it’s by doing good things for the self. The true gauge is how glowing one feels inside, which occurs more and more by removing corrupt data, so much so that love is observed as a state of being instead of an act of doing. i.e. look at the aura of a Guru Jesus Ghandi Dahli Lama etc. They emanate that loving glow and this is what Jesus meant when he said, “of these things I do, you shall do and more”. Little children carry that glow before they are “corrupted” with false damaging data. Hence “be ye more like little children” etc, i.e. be less corrupt and more innocent. Easier said than done. This can only happen when we retrieve that glowing state, which is only possible by removing corrupt data. And as we know, thinking homosexuality is a sin or bad, is corrupt data, and will vehemently dim the souls glow at all times. The amazing thing is how much corrupt data we all carry, and how slow trans analysis is. People know easily how to download corrupt data, but are all thumbs at how to delete it. There are lightening fast ways available now that make TA look slow and archaic, though it’s still the biggest model out there for therapy. BUT, I love I’m OK You’re OK. Brings up great memories of that time. The PAC model of parent adult child is a very viable tool. The church (parent part of ourselves) definitely dominates the adult and child part of ourselves if we let it. Equal say is always the way to union within.
David G, I really hope you stay on and don’t polarize. If someone is pegging you wrong, maybe you could fill in the blanks. It’s hard sometimes when it’s a heated issue, but we are all teste about all this to one degree or another. And Stephen, great to have the other half here. I like your insights.
Anyway, this is my two cents worth, or in this case, three. Please carry on mmmmm 3brothers3.
iDavid, thank you. you were much more epxlicit than I could be.
Another way to say what I have been trying to tell David, perhaps from an expert rather than a dillettante like myself. But basically, we agree. You compared to a sexually molested child, me to and abused wife. I’m glad to hear that TA is still being used, and you see it the way I do.
Ben thx, it’s just my version and I hope I don’t offend anyone, though in this case that’s pretty much impossible.
Being a recovered child sexual abuse survivor, I have peaked antennae on the 1 to 10 scale of sexual abuse. Knowing what full recovery feels like, I revel at helping sexually abused men ascend beyond their inner hell.
Regarding “the church” and possibly offending it on this issue; I don’t mind being perceived by the church as an enemy, as in my heart of hearts, I truly have compassion for it’s misperceptions and the damage it causes i.e. the content of this post by David Rattigan. After all as an alter boy, if it wasn’t for the church, I never would have gotten to wear a dress and drink wine in 8th grade. : )
A great quote that I find useful at times:
“You have enemies? Good. That means you’ve stood up for something, sometime in your life.”
— Winston Churchill —
I like that.
Glad u like Winston’s quote David. I have found it helpful if I ever feel like giving up or have resistance to powering through to the next level of XYZ’s.