My husband’s brother was gay. His uncle, Frank Crowninshield, the founder of Vanity Fair was gay. His closest friend, Paul Moore, the Bishop of New York was gay, though he didn’t know it until recently.
My uncle was gay. My brother’s roommate at boarding school and closest friend is gay. My sister’s closest friend since high school is gay. Two of my closest friends’ sons are gay. My husband’s trainer is gay. She is one of five children of an Army Colonel. Three of them were gay. Two of her brothers died of AIDS. John’s Hopkins Medical School is doing a study of her family to try to determine the genetic causes of homosexuality.
I can hardly think of a family that doesn’t have a gay member somewhere. I have so many gay friends and colleagues I can’t begin to count them.
In the old days, before homosexuals were at all accepted, people used to call them “confirmed bachelors” or spinsters. Then came such tags as "light on their feet," “homos" and “fags.” There was always a sense of contempt, if not ridicule.
Then gays began to come out of the closet, they began to try to adopt children, they began to live openly together. They began to demand equal rights and civil unions and, finally, marriage.
God forbid. The concept of gay marriage has brought religious communities of most faiths together in a sense of outrage, condemnation and opprobrium. They also have managed to influence the law into banning gay marriage. The dictionary will tell you that marriage is “a close or intimate union. “ Only one definition says “relations between a man and a woman who have become husband and wife.”
There’s nothing in the constitution that bans gay marriage. The founding fathers didn’t bring it up. There was nothing in the constitution about interracial marriage either, and yet that was legally banned until 1967? Now we look back on that with disbelief. In fact, the court has ruled that the constitution does place limits on states' ability to restrict access to marriage.
Of course, marriage is a legal and a moral issue. I have been moderating “On Faith” for a year and a half now. I have made it a point to try to study as many religions as I possibly can, to try to understand them and sympathize with them. There are many religions that have allowed some to pervert their basic tenets. But the common thread among all of them is Love. Love thy neighbor as they self. Love one another. Love your fellow beings first. Do unto others as you would have others do unto you.
Homosexual couples are simply two people who love each other. Please explain to me how that can be wrong in the eyes of God. Didn’t God make us all in his image? Please explain to me why it is not better for society that two people who love each other cement their relationship in a legal union. Please tell me how it could possibly be harmful to society to have two loving people form a union.
I simply don’t get it. I really don’t.
I know, I know, it says in the Bible that homosexuality is an abomination. But isn’t that the same Bible that says you should stone to death heretics or anyone who doesn’t believe the same things you do? Isn’t that what we call terrorists, fanatics, or fundamentalists in another country?
Sadly, these views is still too prevalent. Few politicians can endorse gay marriage and get elected. Politicians, judges and religious people will continue to try to make it impossible for two people who love each other to be bound together in holy matrimony, no matter how good or decent or kind or loving or caring or religious they are, no matter how much they contribute to the community.
Just who does that hurt?
I can’t imagine a Jesus or a loving God who would say no to love of any kind.
Somebody please explain this to me because I just don’t get it.
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