Homosexual marriage II

[The Gaffer]

Interesting read, GW. My view is that these experiences (i.e. gay + spiritual) are actually very widespread. 3 of the 4 contemporaries of mine that went into the Church (Anglican or Church of Scotland) are On the Other Bus as it were. There is definitely a strongly spiritual aspect to The Questioning of Sexuality.

[Gwaimir Windgem]

I find so, personally. I think that strong (by which I don't mean just a culturally conservative, but a really personally transforming) religious belief/sentiment and homosexuality both incline one towards introspection, and figuring out who exactly one is.

Of course, due to denominational differences, it's not as much of an issue as it is for Catholics as it is for Catholics, and I would guess that the same is true of the Church of Scotlanders. For mainstream Protestants (generally speaking, of course, since of course Protestantism is a vast and multi-faceted entity, of which few-to-no general statements are definitively true), there is a stronger tendency to a standard-liberal-bourgeois approach to homosexuality, while the Catholic position is rather more nuanced, and (taken at face value) requires a good deal more self-examination and realization to become meaningful.

To be both Catholic and a (non-repressed, self-acknowledging) homosexual is practically impossible without serious self-reflection, examination, and probably a fair dose of existentialism, whereas unconditional acceptance of gay people is rather more common in mainstream Protestant denoms, which renders self-realization (admittedly, only somewhat!) less of an issue.

[Gwaimir Windgem]

Just a further note: I have been, I must admit, very reticent (and probably cowardly) about letting my friends from my conservative Catholic undergraduate college know about my orientation. While I've been fairly comfortable in my own skin for a while, I was terribly afraid of rejection, given the nature of the place, and the beliefs of the people from there. Influenced by A) this blog, and B) a half bottle of wine and three pints of beer, I just sent notes (inspired partly by reading this blog) to my closest friends from there, informing them of my sexuality, and within MINUTES, the two friends from whom I most feared prima facie rejection had sent me heart warming and encouraging notes.

*Squeee!*

The cockles of my heart are downright toasty right now.

[BeardofPants]

I don't even know how the conservative catholic (non-acting?) homosexual thing works, but as long as you're comfortable & happy, that is all that really matters. Just as a matter of aside though, that site you linked to at surface level seemed to imply that being gay was JUST about teh buttsecks? Not love? I surely hope that is not what is being implied.

<edit> - glad things worked out w/ your friends.

[GrayMouser]

Read a few articles from the site, and it hasn't done much to alter my view that being a gay conservative Catholic is like being a member of the African-American Auxiliary of the Sons of the Confederacy, but then I'm neither gay, conservative or Catholic, so....

[Gwaimir Windgem]

No, not for dreadnought. As a faithful Catholic, he holds that, to borrow his term, "homogenital acts" are not kosher, but that gay rights sans marriage and gay identity are to be affirmed (these are pretty much straight out of the Catechism), as well as chaste gay love (which, so far as I can tell, is not definitively taught about either for or against, and thus would be a matter of debate). He also have a strong and positive sense of being gay as being something very different from (but in no way less than) being straight, which occasionally verges in the direction of radical queer theory.

For a bit, I got a sense that it was mostly about sticking it in a particular hole, as well, but upon digging deeper, a strong sense of gay identity, of the value of being a gay person, etc. emerges.

[Last Child of Ungoliant]

i'm not being ignorant or whatever, i just don't have time to read through the whole thread etc, so if i repeat something someone else has said before, please forgive me


many of the old members will know me as a sometimes (ok, often) outspoken, openly gay man, and, as far as i can see, or care for that matter, whether someone is in love with a man or a woman is never the issue, so long as those two people are in love and are committed to each other, then they should be allowed to partake in marriage - i actually know of many gay couples that have been together a lot longer than straight couples, but anyway, that's just my two pence

[Gwaimir Windgem]

Of course we remember you; welcome back! I came out on this board years and years ago, but when I mentioned my homosexuality after returning a few months back, some people seemed surprised. We tend to remember the people, more than categories of sexuality, apparently.

[GrayMouser]

Exactly- I clearly remember you, LCU ( may we call you that, or do you prefer Ungy? ), but I had no recollection of you being gay.

[Rían]

Hi Chrys! Good to see ya - whatcha been up to?


(and how's the back? It was your back with the pain, right?)

[inked]

"September 27, 2010 is National Gay Men’s HIV/AIDS Awareness Day" according to a "Dear Colleague" letter from the CDC I received. The full text is located here: http://www.cdc.gov/hiv/ehap/resources/direct/092410/ .

A state of the union address, I guess, in a sense.

[Insidious Rex]

Whats that got to do with gay marriage exactly? Other than the fact that it may bring that statistic down when there is reinforcement to have monogamous relationships recognized by the state.

[Tessar]

I agree, I don't see what this has to do with the topic of gay marriage. This is a problem for people who have sex with multiple partners, not people who are married.

[inked]

"A state of the union address, I guess, in a sense."

[Gwaimir Windgem]

I'm telling ya, we need to outlaw male parents.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/1..._n_781624.html

[The Gaffer]

This contrasts with 26 percent of American adolescents who report parent or caregiver physical abuse and 8.3 percent who report sexual abuse.

Can that be right?

[Insidious Rex]

Cant say Im shocked that females tend to be less sexually abusive then males. The only logical conclusion is that its bad for the family to let men marry ANYONE. Although I am a little surprised that the study determines that 0% are abused. Statistically that always makes me dubious. There are always anomalies in any population. The idea that a fairly common type of human behavior never occurs makes me question it.

What is just as intreaguing though is when they say that only "2.8 percent of the NLLFS adolescents identified as predominantly to exclusively homosexual". Well so much for the religious right's contention that if we allow them to raise kids that theyll indoctrinate them and brain wash them into becoming homosexuals!

[Gwaimir Windgem]

Originally Posted by The Gaffer

Can that be right?

Yeah, I know people who have suffered sexual abuse in the home, and it's apparently a much bigger issue than is widely recognized.

[The Gaffer]

Me too. But 1 in 12...

It seems many men will pretty much stick it anywhere if left to their own devices for long enough.



But yes, it's a good point IR. All such figures should be accompanied by a statistical confidence interval ideally. But then, that doesn't make as good a story.

[brownjenkins]

All animals, including humans, are bisexual at birth. We learn to be hetero, or homo.