NCNYUMC.ORG |

As this is being written, the heat seems to have eased up a bit concerning gay marriage. But make no mistake: our governments, federal, and some state, has taken it upon themselves to persecute people who are gay. Further, efforts of the gay community - male and female alike - to try to establish emotionally stable relationships with others of their sexual genre, have been mocked to the point where the government, federal and state, have seen fit to try to pass laws outlawing gay marriages. At this writing, I think 13 states have such a law.

The net effect of all this for gay people emotionally should be clear: no matter which way they turn; no matter how honest are the people involved, the efforts of too many of our own governments and people are there to make their lives as miserable as possible.

Which brings me to some findings out of my own personal experiences with gay people as a Clinical Member of the American Association Of Marriage And Family Therapists (now retired) - a counselor of families, if you will - and more basically, as an ordained Elder of the United Methodist Church, which says that it operates on Jesus' premises concerning relating to people: any and all people, regardless of who they are or what they are. Mad, in prison, different colors, different religions, no religions, young, old, middle aged, rich, poor, children, women, men, nuns, priests, celibates, non-celibates, murderers, child abusers, thieves, prostitutes, soldiers, sailors and air force people, different nationalities, different sex inheritances, even politicians.

The following is an attempt to unpack some of the people who function as parents in this nation. I pray the reader will notice that whatever the sexual expression of the parents of children, that sexuality, except for those immature souls who are stuck with the belief that sex is all there is in life that is worth anything, fall into categories that are clear, whether they are good at parenting or lousy at parenting.

1. There are heterosexual marriages that work very well, and the parenting that takes place within that framework also works very well.

2. There are heterosexual marriages that are from the bowels of Hell itself, and the parenting that takes place within that framework are horrors to all concerned, especially the hapless and helpless children.

3. There are single people who are not married who have children, and there are those in that group who are excellent parents.

4. There are single people who are not married who have children, and there are of those in that group who are lousy parents, and do much damage to their children.

5. There are gay people who are married, or living in a non-legal committed agreement who are fine parents, producing children who are equally fine.

6. There are gay people who are married, or living in a non-legal committed agreement who are lousy parents, producing children who are horrors.

7. There are gay grandparents, aunts and uncles who function as parents who do marvelous jobs of rearing children.

8. There are gay grandparents, aunts and uncles who function as parents who do perfectly lousy jobs of rearing children.

9. There are “straight” grandparents, aunts and uncles who function as parents who do marvelous jobs of rearing children.

10.There are “straight” grandparents, aunts and uncles who function as parents who do lousy jobs of rearing children.

11.There are gay people who, in the arena of maturity which they have built for themselves, do not flaunt their sexuality in any regard.

12.There are gay people, who in their immaturity, flaunt their sexuality in the grossest ways possible.

13. For that matter, there are heterosexual people who, married or unmarried, in their maturities, refuse to flaunt their sexuality.

14. There are heterosexual people who, in their immaturities, married or unmarried, flaunt their sexuality in the grossest ways possible. One look at cheer leaders at NFL football games confirms this judgment.

My point in all this unpacking is that the sexual expression of parents is apart from the child rearing process, parenting being an issue of understanding the needs of the child. Certainly, it has long since been true that mature gay parents and other mature gay folks in the parenting role do just as fine a job of rearing children as do mature heterosexual folks.

Our federal and some state governments are very quick to coin or repeat slanderous words concerning gay people. It expects the population to go along with those slanderous words, and apply them wherever they find gay people. Not to say anything about beatings, shootings, lynching, social excommunication, lies and rumors, trying their best to make life continuingly miserable for gay people.

Since it's an election year, the federal and some state governments' efforts take on even larger dimensions of the spirit, in that in an avowed democracy, such as ours, those efforts come right out in the open and declares that gay people are not worth what other people are worth.

For that matter, the federal and some state governments are also doing the same things to black people, to Latin American immigrants, to many different kinds of Muslim peoples, to American Indian peoples. The summary phrase for all this widespread treatment is: “Put them down.”

There is in the Republican Party a group called “Log Cabin Republicans.” They are all gay folks. What strikes me as odd is that even when the Republican Party keeps smearing them as freaks to avoid, they remain members of the party. Go figure.

For that matter, Vice-President Cheney's daughter is gay, and has a live-in lover. She was Cheney's political manager during both Presidential election campaigns, and then his top office manager for some time until the heat being generated by the “liberals” for this hypocrisy became too much for both. She now works for a corporation.

I have to smile even in the midst of such sadness because if, as the fundies and evvies claim, that gay people can change their sexual expression at their will, why is that that Mary Cheney has not taken advantage of this so called miracle? Why isn't she involved in the “seminars” that are supposed to make these things happen?

If it were possible to change one's sexual imprint, and one refuses to do that, then what is one to make of this? This is known as “hypocrisy.” I would think the Republicans would at least be embarrassed by such hypocrisy.

Another point: given the shabby and murderous treatment that so many people and governments bestow on gay people, it seems to me that if the matter of being gay is a question of personal choice, then to choose to be gay is insanity itself.

On the other hand, if gay people have no choice about their sexual expression - being born with it, so to speak - then it seems to me that those governments and people who make it their business to make life miserable for such folks are using the persecution for other purposes than “cleansing the body politic of sin.”

Such persecution is precisely political, a method of arousing the uninformed electorate in order to gain goals of being elected to office of one type or another…a Presidency of our nation, for one example; or a governorship, or a congressional seat.

Too, if gay people are born with their gayness, and thus have no choice about that matter, then it seems to me that God wills this to be the case. How else to explain this?

Try telling that to the fundamentalists or evangelicals, especially since there is nothing in Jesus' teachings that encourages the ways in which gay folks are persecuted by those who profess to be Christian, but pay no attention whatsoever to Jesus' teachings about how to live in God's love with the world as it is.