From: ltucker@next.com (Lee Tucker)
Newsgroups: soc.motss
Subject: Re: The Unwritten Law
Keywords: fundamentalism self-hatred
Date: 15 Oct 92 16:18:34 GMT
Reply-To: ltucker@next.com

In article <1bcg5jINNsdu@stanley.cis.Brown.EDU>  
ST402341@brownvm.brown.edu (Gary Byma) writes:

> Ever since I realized that I was gay (some twenty years ago) I have
> been wrestling with the conflict between what my inner self was  
telling
> me and what the Bible purportedly taught. For years, I allowed the
> Bible and the interpretation put on it my fundamentalist pundits win
> out. Upon coming out, finally, I realized that there was something
> wrong with this interpretation. How could a God of love have a  
problem
> with anyone loving someone else? But even more fundamentally, how  
could
> a just God have two standards, one for gays and one for straights?
> 
> During a conversation I had with my mother the other day, she said  
that
> she recognized that it was easy for her to say that homosexual love  
was
> a sin because it wasn't something she didn't have to struggle with  
it.
> Now, I have had similar conversations with others about the  
facileness
> of heterosexuals who called homosexuality a sin, but all of sudden I
> saw that this amounted to an 11th commandment, "the unwritten law",
> Thou shalt not have sex with member to the same sex.

(Stuff I deleted...)

> Gary Byma

I've spent a lot of time pondering this problem.   Too much of that  
time was spent pondering the problem from the fundamentalist point of  
view.   In the church I was raised in, homosexuality is a sin, a big  
sin.  

You can argue about what Leviticus and Paul have to say on the subject.    
I didn't.  The pastor's teaching made sense to me when I was fourteen  
and beginning to understand this message.   You didn't question the  
pastor without a lot of soul-searching and research.   The only  
available text I had was the Bible, and it was there in plain English.   
(At fourteen, I didn't speak ancient Hebrew, Greek, or any of the other  
original languages.)   Therefore, homosexuality was a sin.

So here you are, you've been told you are a sinner.  Let's put that in  
the big picture of what you are taught at church.

First you are told that everybody sins.   It is an easy thing to  
accept.  It is easy because it includes everybody.  You are no worse  
off than your friends and enemies.

Then you are told that you need forgiveness.  Who doesn't want to be  
forgiven?  I certainly do.  I don't spend my time wanting to hurt  
people. (Well, ok, a few people need a good spanking, but...)  I want  
to be forgiven for the times that I have.

You are told to ask God for that forgiveness and that he will  
graciously grant it.   On one condition only...    The condition is  
that you are truly repentant.

For me, this is where it gets very, very sticky.   If you find yourself  
sinning the same sin over and over again, how can you call yourself  
repentant?  If you aren't repentant, then you aren't forgiven.   If you  
aren't forgiven then you are evil!

Internalizing this message made me hate myself.  Everything that I did  
was wrong.  I would spend hours mentally berating myself for saying or  
doing the wrong thing.  Not because I had intended anyone any harm, but  
because what I did may have harmed or offended someone.  I had no  
access to forgiveness because I was unrepentant for at least one sin.

The "love the sinner, hate the sin" principle is much easier to apply  
to someone else, than it is to yourself.   Especially when, as someone  
forgiven, you can feel that you are superior to the sinner.  (Yes, I  
know that this isn't especially biblical.  I know the metaphor of one  
beggar leading another to food.)   It may not be biblical, but it  
happens.   But when you apply this message to yourself, the trick of  
feeling superior for being forgiven evaporates.  You are left with no  
one to compare to except those around you who are all feeling smug  
because they don't feel the need to be forgiven.

I eventually found myself praying that I would lose my sexuality.  That  
I would have it excised miraculously.  I went so far as to pray to be  
made paraplegic so that I wouldn't be able to act on my feelings.   
These are not the signs of a well person.  

As I see it, there are two ways out of this trap.  First, you can  
abandon the notion that same-sex love is a sin.   Second, you can  
abandon the entire line of reasoning and stop feeling you need to be  
forgiven.  Then it doesn't matter whether same-sex love is a sin or  
not.

Right now, I'm in denial about which road to take.  After 30 years of  
hearing these messages, I'm taking some time away from them to explore  
myself and decide where I stand.   I refuse to take up that decision  
until I've had more time to decide who I am and where I fit in the  
universe. 

Finally, I don't want to leave the impression that everything that  
Christianity taught me was bad.  It wasn't.   Fidelity, honesty, love,  
charity, and patience are all good values to have and to share.   I  
thank my parents and my church for teaching me these values, even if I  
don't always practice them.

Lee Tucker


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