Friday, November 23, 2007

What you don’t know can’t hurt you…

http://www.anglican-mainstream.net/index.php/2007/11/23/what-you-dont-know-cant-hurt-you/#more-2459

[Anglican Mainstream] 23.11.07--It is often more interesting to discover what has not been said than what has been. I am thinking here of my letter to the Church Times, 23rd November 2007. Part but by no means all saw the light of day on the printed page: the most damning evidence was omitted which provided the strongest factual basis for the letter’s otherwise fairly outrageous claims. Hence I am printing the letter in its entirety - the edited out bits are in italics. And to be frank, I could have added site after dreadful site, but felt this was at least a start.

‘”Acceptance helps gays, psychiatrists inform Anglicans”, caught my eye. I have shared my home and Golden Retriever with lovely gay men and been good friends with bi women. I don’t only observe from a safe distance, but I am interested in these issues within a larger framework as well. The hurt and rejection of those in the GLBT community have been immense. No doubt of it. But isn’t there more at stake here? I would have hoped that both the article and the supporting document would have developed the issues, instead of reiterating the same stale argumentation. I kept wondering when the more recent academic research on “born gay” theories, ex-gay and reparative therapy, for instance, would surface.

I would like to note two things here. First, this sort of “acceptance” does help gays in certain respects. It would also help all sorts of other sexual minorities still closeted. Do we want them “out” too? There are many sexual orientations - people keep assuming the gay show is the only one in town! Bis, polys (polyamorists), zoos (loving relationships with animals) and even boy/girllovers (they reject the label of paedophile as inaccurate and pejorative) all claim that they are “wired” like this, have always known they were different and suffered discrimination. Read their stuff! This is how they feel.

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