Matt, are YOU gay?

The funny thing is that it was my best guy friend who asked me that. I got thumped on by a bible weilding Christian, he really did have a bible and was thumping it against his hand and the table to emphasize his points where the bible says that gay people are wrong, and that women are not equal to men because we all have preset roles that we need to fill, and that we would not have such problems or be sad or depressed or angry if we just accepted our god ordained roles and became the proper people that we should be. Its hard to think that someone who I call friend would question my salvation, and my sexual orientation in one sitting, but I guess the two go hand in hand, you can not (according to him, and a lot of others) be Christian and gay. So, part of me feels almost happy about it now, looking back a full day, but at first I was so shocked that I did not know what to do, I guess part of me found it really offensive also, there is no real good way to question something like that. So, I went from shocked to sorta angry, to really steaming angry and have sorta calmed down a little now, but I feel it boiling just below surface level, I know that I am still not really happy with it, but have pushed it down a little in-order to save those around me, but it is still there.

I have been pondering today why someone would question my sexual orientation, why would another guy be so concerned about it to question another guy without it being a topic to discuss, I guess if I were openly gay and happy to talk about it, then it would be fine to talk about it, but I was discussing why I did not agree with my friend when he was explaining to me the proper way to excommunicate a gay person. Somehow that has become the appropriate way to deal with it, close that person off from your group, because he will just poison the rest of the group. So, a homosexual in the church is somehow worse then the drunk or the wife abuser, oh, wait, there is no such thing as wife abuse, I mean teaching your wife in the ways of god by beating them, ya, that’s what I really want to say. The gay conversation was pre-empted by hours of conversation on the roles of men and women in a church setting, and I was just emotionally and physically drained by it all, but it did make me wonder about the traits that I was exhibiting that showed him that I was gay. I guess I am just not “man” enough, I don’t desire to have some sort of absolute control over women, I honestly and whole heartedly value and respect women and most of the women that I know, I love and value their opinions and thoughts. It makes it really hard for me to swallow the idea that women are of a lesser quality than a man, that they have nothing to teach men and should stay at home and cook and sew. I find that kind of thinking really infuriating. I love and respect my mother and father a lot, and I have never heard my father talk this way about my mother, as much as I disagree with my father on some points, I have never really doubted that he loved her 100% and that they were absolutely committed to each-other. I have never heard my dad say that my mom was anything less than a brilliant strong woman, and I passionately and absolutely respect and love my mother, so when someone wants to tell me that she has nothing to teach me about god and love and life, screw them!

So, somehow I am a failure as a heterosexual man. By the looks of things, I should devalue women, I need to learn to hate people who are different then me, and probably stop cooking. I guess I am “old” now and nowhere near getting married or having a girlfriend, like to cook, so somehow that makes me gay. I don’t even really want to be angry at it, why would I be angry at someone thinking that I was gay? I did not like it and felt like I had to right away start justifying why I was not gay, how I did like women, so there was something there that I felt like I had to justify who I was as a man, but looking at it now, I am sad that in my own way, I reacted just as negatively to the whole topic as soon as it was focused on me. It made me wonder what it would be like to be gay, and not be able to tell your friends and family because you were afraid of the reaction.

So, there honestly was something really good about the whole situation, after hours of talking back and forth about my sexual orientation and other defects in me, we went to my parents house to ask my dad a biblical question about some subjects that I was not really sure about. The funny thing is that for the first time in a long time, I was absolutely happy with being able to talk to my father (who just bought me a wonderful new food mixer for my birthday) about spiritual issues. My dad spoke about personal life issues that he has struggled with and how he dealt with them, the three of us dialoged about these tough personal issues and I guess I almost felt like I had been rescued by my dad, no, I was not crazy for disagreeing with my friend, look, here are other people who know more about bible stuff than I ever want to, and honestly, I really felt supported and loved inside a conversation with my dad about biblical stuff, and you will never know how much that meant to me.

Ya, that’s about all I have to say about that right now. Perhaps I will get myself all riled up yet again soon, but right now, I am just smoldering and angry.

M@

“Uncontrolled, the hunger and thirst after God may become an obstacle, cutting off the soul from what it desires. If a man would travel far along the mystic road, he must learn to desire God intensely but in stillness, passively and yet with all his heart and mind and strength.” ~A. Huxley