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Questions and Answers

For Those Whose Loved Ones Just Came Out

Click on the questions, and see the answers below:
What is happening to me?... Why tell me? Is it my fault? Who recruited my child? What about the law? Should we tell? Is there objective information? Is it a sin? Is it unnatural? Am I in denial? How does my child feel? Is there a cure? Why doesn't my child "act gay"? Will my child have a lonely life? No more grandchildren? Who can I talk to? What about AIDS? Any books I can read?

Is It a Sin?

First, a word for parents and families...

Unfortunately, many of us struggle with both societal pressures and religious issues when coming to terms with a loved one's coming out to us. We have witnessed other parents' and family members' being torn between their love for a gay child and the condemnation by religious men and women.

In extreme cases, we have seen parents disown their gay children after seeking counsel from a priest or minister, who showed less than compassion not only towards our children but also towards the parents themselves. We've been blamed for our children's sexual orientation as though we had lacked giving our children solid religious or spiritual guidance. Unfortunately for some of us, our religious beliefs have gone unquestioned for so long, that we accept guilt and shame and believe that shunning our children is what we're called to do. Rather than fiding comfort in our religious beliefs, we were thrown into further despair and helplessness.

Fortunately, others have taken a more balanced approach and remained solid in our spiritual convictions without resorting to reactions that we could only regret deeply later.

If you have experienced something extreme like this, be assured that you do have options. It is possible to maintain high spiritual and moral values and attain a deeper understanding and acceptance of our children just as they are... Acceptance of Creation can be a form of humbling ourselves to the Creator of our belief. Without having to cast away our relationship with a God of our understanding, it is possible to achieve peace of mind.

The religious debate over homosexuality is likely to continue for many decades to come. Our web site is not the right place (nor would we have enough room on a single web server!) for lengthy, in depth discussions about religion and homosexuality. In addition, which religion? Not all religions hold the same beliefs about homosexuality, and at times disagreements exist even within the same congregation.

You will find information throughout our web site which casts a positive light on homosexuality. Is this a biased view? Yes! Negative information abounds on the Internet, media, churches, and schools. Our aim is to provide information that counters the volumes of negative information so that, hopefully, there can be some degree of balance.

Is all of this confusing? Definitely. But, rather than just stick to our own prejudiced knowledge, we would rather have access to both sides of such a complex issue. We must always remember what's at stake here: our love for our children and our own peace of mind.

We strongly suggest that you take small steps at this point. Withhold rash judgment based on old ideas and concepts that you may have had from an early age. Many of these concepts turned out to be misconceptions after careful reflection and study. Do not assume any knowledge in the area. We have found that the majority of us had tremendoudly negative biases on the issue without our awareness.

We cannot stress enough that easy steps, gentle reflection and knowledge have helped us immensely along this path. It can be difficult and confusing at times. For those of us who have walked this path, the following choices seem obvious today, but not so when we first embarked on this journey:

These are by no means easy questions to answer. In hind sight, we have learned that the difficult task that we embraced regarding religious questions presented us with an invaluable opportunity to grow spiritually. We feared that our quest for spiritual understanding might lead us away from our relationship with the Creator of our understanding; instead, it brought us closer to our Creator and gave us a deeper, more powerful insight into His Creation.

What does the Bible really say?

Biblical scholars don't rush to judgement as quickly as many preachers. Bible experts come to conclusions that are very different from the usual interpretations that are quoted as if they carried the sole truth about homosexuality.

It is believed that, even in judeo-christian faiths, the tone of the Bible on the subject of homosexuality has been misconstrued. The ancients weren't anywhere near as concerned about it as modern interpreters imagine. Religious scholars the world over point out that the concept of gayness that we have today did not exist in the ancient biblical world. Therefore, the passages alegedly about homosexuality need to be taken with caution. Even unequivocal condemnations of homosexuality, when put into a historical context, can lead to interpretations that are different from mere condemnations of homosexuality as we understand it today. Many translations later, what did the original texts really have to say?

Sodom and Gommorah... and other texts

The prophet Ezekiel discusses at some length the sins of Sodom, and makes it clear that the sin of sodom wasn't homosexuality; it was inhospitality towards travelers from the desert (Ezek. 16:48-50). That this was the interpretation of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah held by Jesus is clear (Matthew 10:14-15, Mark 6:11, Luke 10:11-12); in using Sodom as an example in these scriptures, Jesus is making reference to the interpretation of the event by Ezekiel. Some versions of the bible even have Jesus quote Ezekiel in this context.

According to Walter Wink, Professor of Biblical Interpretation at Auburn Theological Seminary in New York City, some passages quoted from the Bible are in fact irrelevant to the modern issue of homosexuality. The attempted gang rape in Sodom (Gen. 19:1-29) is said to describe heterosexual males' intent to humiliate strangers by treating them "like women," thus demasculinizing them. This is also the case in a similar account in Judges 19-21. Such account of brutal behavior has nothing to do with the problem of whether genuine love expressed between consenting adults of the same sex is legitimate or not. Similarly, Deut. 23:17-18 is irrelevant because it most likely refers to a heterosexual prostitute involved in Canaanite fertility rites that have infiltrated Jewish worship; the King James Version inaccurately labeled him a "sodomite."

Several other texts are ambiguous such as 1 Cor. 6:9 and 1 Tim. 1:10, where it is unclear whether the issue is homosexuality alone, or promiscuity and "sex-for-hire."

Unequivocal references

Eliminating ambiguous texts, three references remain which unequivocally condemn homosexual behavior. Lev. 18:22 states the principle: "You [masculine] shall not lie with a male as with a woman; it is an abomination." The second (Lev. 20:13) adds the penalty: "If a man lies with a male as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination; they shall be put to death; their blood is upon them."

Such an act was regarded as an abomination because the Hebrew prescientific understanding was that male semen contained "the whole of nascent life." Woman were thought to provide only the incubating space. Therefore, the spilling of semen for any non-procreative purpose—in coitus interruptus (Gen. 38:1-11), male homosexual acts, or male masturbation—was considered tantamount to abortion or murder. That also explains why female homosexual acts were not so seriously regarded, and are not mentioned at all in the Old Testament (but see Rom. 1:26). In a time when a tribe struggling to populate a country in which its people were outnumbered, procreation was understandably highly valued.

In addition, the patriarchal Hebrew culture condemned an act that was considered degrading to men in general, such as a man acting like a woman sexually. It was more a matter of preserving male dignity as it was perceived then rather than any absolute moral precept. No similar stricture was formulated to forbid homosexual acts between females.

Old Testament texts have to be weighed against the New. Therefore, Paul's unambiguous condemnation of homosexual behavior in Rom. 1:26-27 must be discussed. According to Walter Wink, "For this reason God gave them up to degrading passions. Their women exchanged natural intercourse for unnatural, and in the same way also the men, giving up natural intercourse with women, were consumed with passion for one another. Men committed shameless acts with men and received in their own persons the due penalty for their error" (http://christianity.about.com/library/weekly/blwink.htm, retrieved in May 2002).

According to Wink, Paul made no distinction between sexual orientation, over which one has apparently very little choice, and sexual behavior, over which one does. Paul's assumption is that those whom he condemns are heterosexual, and are acting contrary to their nature for that which is foreign to them. Mounting evidence exists today that, for the gay persons, engaging in heterosexual acts is as unnatural to them as heterosexuals engaging in same-sex relations.

The relationships Paul describes are lustful rather than genuine same-sex love. The relationships he condemns are not those between consenting adults who are committed to each other faithfully and with integrity.

Paul's beliefs are based both on the assumption that homosexuality is contrary to nature and on cultural edicts of the time. Those times have changed. With the increasing understanding of what is or isn't "natural," many of the old beliefs have been refuted as obsoleted or unfounded. Many other concepts—other than homosexuality—that were once condemned in the Bible are no longer accepted today; for example,

Gay people in the bible

Lesbian and gay people are portrayed positively in biblical passages several times. In the Old Testament, the entire book of Ruth is one of the most beautiful stories of love between two women that has ever been written. Ironically, many passages from this scripture have been chosen to celebrate heterosexual marriage ceremonies!

The story of David and Johnathan in the book of I Samuel is also a beautiful gay love story (I Samuel 19:1 through 23:29). Each shows the committment and sacrifice for each other that gay couples today can recognize.

Although even Jesus was aware of homosexuality, no record exists that he ever condemned it. In at least one instance, Jesus is said to have praised the faith of a gay man! In the original Greek version of the story of Jesus healing the centurion's servant (Matthew 8:5-13, Luke 7:2-10), the words used to describe the centurion's companion isn't servant but, translated accurately, beloved boy, a phrase that clearly connotes the common practice at the time of older gay men or gay men in positions of authority keeping younger men as their lovers and partners.

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