debotton@andromeda.rutgers.edu (Len DeBotton) (06/15/91)
I dont know what news group to post this in. One of
my very close friends has just told me that he
is homosexual. He is an atheist so he has no ties to
religon at all. I am a newly married male as of (June 14th)
so he did not tell me this to come on to me. Like I said he
is a close friend but not in that way. I am confused. Part
of me says that it is his life and what he wants to do is
his buisness. The other part of me says that I dont want
him to be homosexual. I have none him for about 3 years
and he has dated girls and had sexual relationships with
women. Some questions that I think of are. If I invite my
friends over to my house and they bring there
girlfriends over do I ask him to bring his boyfriend. I dont
know what to do. Should I just think this is nothing and
do nothing and dont think of it ? I have nothing against
homosexual people at all. It is a free world and they can
do what ever they want, but now for the first time it
has come into my life and I would like to hear some peoples
opinions.. Please respond to my account. I dont read news much.
Thanks..
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^ Leonard De Botton -- Dreams can come true ^
^ If you think fish are borring then you must not have a fish tank ^
^ debotton@andromeda.rutgers.edu ^
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[Please note the request to respond directly. If you want to post
something you should probably cc him directly. Obviously I'm not
going to get my desire of having a respite from discussions of
homosexuality, but I would like to avoid yet another discussion of the
Biblical prohibitions. We've been through that recently. --clh]lcrew@andromeda.rutgers.edu (Louie Crew) (06/17/91)
debotton@andromeda.rutgers.edu (Len DeBotton) writes: >One of my very close friends has just told me that he >is homosexual. Congratulations. Sounds like he trusts you. Almost everyone has family and friends who are gay or lesbian. If they do not know any lesbians or gays close to them, that fact demonstrates how untrustworthy they seem to their lesgay friends. >... The other part of me says that I dont want >him to be homosexual. Reasonable feeling; but be cautious about the conclusions you draw. Of those most opposed to homosexuality, few therapists claim to be able to change it, even if the homosexual person wants to change. Given the enormous persecution which lesgays face in our society, your friend could not be where he is now without having seriously considered his own chances to succeed with a heterosexual adaptation. You note, for example, that he has related to females sexually. It appears that he has worked hard to find out about who he is. Since he has concluded that he is by nature gay, not straight, his remaining choices are quite real and important: the choice of what kind of gay person he wants to be. Given the trust he has put in you, you can encourage in him those loving, generous, caring, humane, imaginative, and other positive resources that he manifests as a gay human being; or you can treat him with fierce reductiveness, pity, disappointment, shame, or other demeaning gestures. How you decide to treat him will say much more about you than about him; and I hope you discover your own goodness. Please don't take time out to play God the eternal judge. Rather, imitate God the eternal lover and friend. Your own loving kindness to your friend may well be his only chance to know God. Don't worry much about his Christian conversion: that's the Holy Spirit's job, and She often protects sheep in other folds, especially when Unlove takes over the official congregations. I have it on good authority that God already loves your friend immensely, enough to die for him. >If I invite my >friends over to my house and they bring there >girlfriends over do I ask him to bring his boyfriend. Of course. Don't just ask, encourage! If you don't, he will hurt himself if he spends much more time with you. But don't spend your time gawking or using the two of them to "study homosexuality." They're not going to watch you and your wife to study heterosexuality either. Be hospitable. The test of how successful you are will be how comfortable they feel to invite you back to their own space. Thanks for your posting. Right now your fears are rational, given the education you've received. Don't shift to make them phobic. And use this occasion to enlarge your education. Now fewer than 100 books have been written in the last two decades dealing with the questions you raise. Read a couple. You might begin with Virginia Mollenkott's _Is the Homosexual My Neighbor?_ Louie Louie Crew . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . lcrew@andromeda.rutgers.edu Associate Professor . . . . . . . . . . . . . .lcrew@draco.rutgers.edu Academic Foundations Department . . . . . . . CompuServe No. 73517,147 Rutgers: The State University of New Jersey. . . . . . 201-485-4503 h P. O. Box 30 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 201-648-5434 o Newark, NJ 07101 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 201-648-5700 FAX Only a dead fish floats with the current.
rona@hpdmd48.boi.hp.com (Ron Abramson) (07/01/91)
[I did send a reply through email, but I thought that this might be of general interest since many of us have gay friends who don't feel com- fortable going to any "traditional" church.] In-Reply-To: article <Jun.15.03.00.34.1991.19143@athos.rutgers.edu> of Sat, 15 Jun 1991 06:19:49 GMT >I dont know what news group to post this in. One of >my very close friends has just told me that he >is homosexual. He is an atheist so he has no ties to >religon at all. You should know that there is a church whose ministry is primarily to homosexuals. It is called the Metropolitan Community Church. There is probably one near you if you'll check the yellow pages. Perhaps you could suggest that the two of you go together. You could say that while you believe in the bible, you care for him and would like to hear what homosexual Christians have to say. I have visited the MCC church here (even though I'm not gay) and the "feeling" that I left with was that these particular "gays" were Christian men and women. This feeling was not obtained by entering into a debate, but just in observing the worship and fellowship. Anyway, I believe that many gay people are "atheists" because they don't believe that any church will accept them. The position of MCC is, God loves us all regardless of lifestyle and preference. Love in Him, RLA