“...I’m coming out. I want the world to know, got to let it show...”
I don’t mean to steal anybody’s thunder...or to diminish the social pressures facing gay, bi-sexual & transgendered people. However, it’s generally considered unacceptable to be naked most places, and often illegal. And when you appear naked, other people there—even casual passersby— know right away.
I know some may argue about people “becoming” gay, when that happens, etc. But, I can confidently proclaim that I was born this way. And I challenge anyone to say I wasn’t.
So, I hope I’m not stepping on anybody’s toes here, but I’m going to embrace National Coming Out day on a more personal level than usual and post this blog a little wider today on the facebook. Don’t worry: I’m still not gonna post to minors and a few other folks.
Anyway...
I’m straight.
I’m naked.
Whoo-hoo!
Sadly, it’s damp & cool today, or I might be sitting outside typing this.
Anyway, I’m just gonna copy (& edit) & paste a couple of things I wrote last year on National Coming Out Day. It may be a little long.
A couple of years ago I worked for one semester at a private Baptist University, where the head of my department asked me to not tell the students that I was not a Christian.
... As the semester dragged on, I found it harder and harder to not talk about my lack of faith. Only one person, other than the head of the department, ever asked me directly about what I believed. I told her the truth. I’m agnostic. But there were so many other times when I could tell that people were assuming that I was like them, that I shared their faith... I was in the faith “closet”. There was something about me that was rather significant, and I knew that most everyone else around me was not “that way”, and they assumed that I was just like them and not “that way” either.
... My being asked to not reveal that I wasn’t a Christian was a symptom of the larger problem of a focus on the appearance of things at the expense of the substance... That attitude is in direct opposition to my feeling about life, how people should communicate with each other, and... teachers and schools ought to be encouraging students to examine things and explore the truth, even when it’s uncomfortable. I think this is a general problem in “the church” and the reason behind so many church/minister scandals. They’re busy working on the appearance of right-ness or righteousness and not dealing with the substance or truth of things.
... Before that experience, I knew that I considered it important to tell the truth. It’s something that I value. But I now know that it’s also very important for me to not not tell the truth. Not telling the truth about something feels just like lying, which I hate.
... The whole experience of feeling “closeted” in that way was just dreadful. And I didn’t even feel any shame about being agnostic. How horrible would it have been if I thought it was bad or evil or sinful or unnatural or just plain wrong to be the way I was.
It’s not wrong or evil to be agnostic. Sometimes it can be difficult. But there are people out there who are like you and others who aren’t but will support you and love you and not think that you’re bad because of it.
And it’s not wrong or evil to be gay. Sometimes it can be difficult. But there are people out there who are like you and others who aren’t but will support you and love you and not think that you’re bad because of it.
In college, after a friend of mine came out, I decided to do an “experiment”.
I went around to lots of people I knew and did the whole spiel: “There’s something I want to tell you; my family and some friends already know, but I feel I’m ready to let everybody know; it’s not anything that has to change our relationship, I’m still the same person, but I just wanted you to know that I am a heterosexual.”... With most people there was a moment mid-spiel when they realized what (they thought) I was going to say.
... I remember one guy—and he was the type you might expect to come out one day (I once described that type as the north-Alabama youth pastor type: a bit flamboyant with no overt sexual interests and very much in love with God/Jesus and his mamma)—who just seemed to be listening, not reacting, until I got to the end, “heterosexual”, and he exclaimed “Chris, no!” Like many people, he picked up on the context clues and his brain heard me say “homosexual”. I just remember his reaction in particular, because his voice got high-pitched ... and he seems so upset that I could be gay. It went against his Southern, religious upbringing.
... I would like the moral of this story to be something else, something like “support your friends and loved ones and strangers who come out because we’re all just people who need love”. But I realize the story doesn’t really support that. I guess the actual moral is that “most if not all of us make assumptions and judgments that may not be true”.
It’s National Coming Out Day, and that’s my coming out story. I know the day isn’t about doing informal social experiments on your friends. So let me say this: stop the hate; stop the condemnation. Those attitudes are based in fear. But you don’t need to be afraid of homosexual people. The “gays” are not out to get us “straights”. Sure there may be the occasional individual who threatens you somehow and happens to be gay, but there are scary straight individuals too. Straight guys out there, if some gay man really wants to have sex with you, then you should feel flattered that someone finds you attractive even if you don’t reciprocate. Or, if he’s really making unwanted, inappropriate advances, now you have some idea of (the beginning of) what a woman might feel when men make those advances toward her. You can feel better about yourself, &/or learn something. Isn’t that a win-win? Well, maybe not.
Anyway... If you have a religious objection to homosexuality, here’s something for Christians: stop focusing so much on a few passages in the Old Testament and the letters of Paul, etc; look instead at what Jesus supposedly said, you know, the “red-letter” words in some of those Bibles. He was not all about hate, and hell-fire and damnation. He was not all about “don’t”. he was really quite radically about “do” love people and “do” help people and “do” forgive people...even the ones you don’t like or maybe who you don’t think deserve it. Now, if you’re Muslim or Hindu or something, I can’t help much. I just don’t have much background there. Sorry.
In conclusion...love and support your people, no matter their gender preference/identity.
Yeah, that's still the conclusion.
Also, your naked friends need love and support too, not fear and avoidance.
Sigh. I accompany a choir at a Christian school and I'm very much in the agnostic closet. A couple of weeks ago(after I had already been working there a couple of months) they asked me to fill out an employment application with questions/instructions like: Why do you believe you are called to teach in a Christian school? Give a detailed account of your salvation experience (how you came to know Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior) and of your walk with the Lord up to the present. This is just a small sampling; there are many more.
ReplyDeleteI haven't filled it out yet. I'm going to wait and see if they'll forget about it. I'm very much not telling the truth. It feels icky.
You can always quit that gig...and be poor.
ReplyDelete