Whaa...Huh?

Sunday, February 7, 2010
Today I was listening to a Podcast of NPR's show Tell Me More while struggling through my Statistics homework (Continuous Probability Distributions! Sampling Methods! The Central Limit Theorem!). One of Michel Martin's guests was Gayle Haggard, the wife of disgraced evangelical minister Ted Haggard, who was there to talk about her new book, Why I Stayed.

Now let's be clear. I don't give a good goddamn about the Haggard's marriage, who he slept with, what her reaction was, and how they decided to manage the situation, although I will admit to a certain amount of schadenfreude when he was caught with his pants down, so to speak. The reason I don't care is because (surprise!) it's none of my business.

How she chose to manage her life moving forward was a personal choice and since I have no skin in that game, I don't really care what she decides. She wants a divorce? Fine. She wants to hang his cheating ass from the highest yardarm? Go for it. She wants to remain married to the guy and they agree on whatever arrangement makes them happy with help from their faith traditions? Swell.

What gets me wrapped around the axle is the insinuation by both her and her husband that being gay, or being attracted to members of the same sex, is some sort of disease that makes the baby Jesus cry and can be cured by the power of faith.

Unsurprisingly, I disagree.

It's true that we don't have a definitive answer to what causes homosexuality. People have been studying it for years and years, and (again, unsurprisingly), the root cause has eluded researchers. That would be because it's complex. Human sexuality comes in a very broad spectrum, with a large variety of norms. And that variety isn't a recent development - people have been gay for as long as there's been people. For me, and for many people who aren't Leviticans, that implies such a wide spectrum is a natural event. Not to be cured, not to be condemned. It just is.

Which is why I don't understand why people think such things can be "fixed" by the power of the Jeebus. If God and his kin loved us so much, why would They/He want us to suppress who we are in order to conform to some narrow definition of humanity written by men whose understanding of the human condition, evolution, biochemistry, hormones and other contributing factors is less complex than that of the average modern 6th grader?

I know there's plenty of Christians out there who don't look at human sexuality in this way, and I'm glad of it. I just wish they'd be more forceful in condemning the ideas of the Haggards of the world.

5 comments:

Steve Buchheit said...

'Cause the heathen baiting just isn't fun anymore. And the Pagan's, well, we can't burn them at the stake anymore, so they're no longer any fun. The "squick" factor has all gone out of them. But them homos, they just keep giving and giving.

mfheadcase said...

Oh might as well let the idiots think that homosexuality is a disease. Because if you ever maage to convince them otherwise, they will likely revert to the default position.

Claiming that Homosexuality is a lifestyle choice that needs to be punished.

The "disease" model is arguably less harmful than that, though admittedly not by much.

The Mechanicky Gal said...

I had to apologize to the gal next to me at the gym when this DoucheTard was on Oprah. HIS bi-sexuality is different than those dirty dirty other bi-sexuals. He is special and curable.
I was yelling at the TV very loudly.

Anne C. said...

Did you know that in ancient Greece, love between two men was considered a higher form of love than between a man and a woman? That's because women were inferior, of course, and useful for only one thing - having babies.

So, democracy is based on a culture that praised homosexuality. Heh. I love it.

Janiece said...

Anne, that factoid maketh me to giggle with sweet, sweet irony.