Yeah, I don't know if I've clarified the position in my own mind. I'm definitely not thinking that the opinions that he has espoused deserve support; just him. The platitude that Christians tend to associate with this phenomenon is "love the sinner, hate the sin," which I think can and should be applied more broadly throughout society even though it sounds like Hallmark Channel crap.
It's just, I don't know, here's a guy who had to live in a deceitful manner towards the people closest to him, who was outed in a very public and relatively humiliating manner, and who will probably lose his job and many of his friends as a result of these public revelations. That's sucky. It's sucky when someone gets caught up in a DADT fiasco in the military and has to be discharged, it's sucky when a schoolteacher has to go through the wringer because of her personal life, and I wonder if it doesn't suck in very much the same way here. I think that there are large portions of the gay community who understand him and the situation in which he finds himself, and I pray that some of them find a heroic level of classiness to help him through his own darkness.
Also, as I said above, I want to live in a world where someone's sexual orientation is not cause for snide humor or a feeling that they're about to face social justice for their gayness. That, with all due respect, is what the Enemy does, and I will therefore strive to create the world that does something better. I'm not an angel or a Pollyanna here: I want to stand in front of James Dobson's fat face and say "Metaphorically stoning a gay man isn't right EVEN if it's your best friend and someone who has spent years harming the gay community himself. Every gay person deserves social dignity and civil rights no matter what his political views are." Again, this is a moral position that I borrow from Jesus, who said that the most sensible way to overcome your enemies is to be better than they are, and I think that he was on to something.
I agree with Peg that "pity" is a good start for how I feel. I feel that the place that he is a pitiful state. But, again I don't know, I think about Desmond Tutu and Nelson Mandela who dismantled apartheid and then, instead of dancing on Botha and DeKlerk's ashes, developed a Truth and Reconciliation Commission to establish relationships based on a common history and a desire to understand each other. I think that is a wonderful model: using the power of Right to defeat Wrong, but then to use your power to purify the Wrong rather than just leaving it to fester in a dark corner to rise again later. I want to do that more often, not only because it is just and feels good, but because it is building the foundation of the next generation's ethics on love and understanding rather than on one week's tactical "gotcha" win.
Anyway, long and boring and probably not well written, but I didn't mean to imply that he deserved a free pass.
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Date: 2006-11-05 02:45 am (UTC)It's just, I don't know, here's a guy who had to live in a deceitful manner towards the people closest to him, who was outed in a very public and relatively humiliating manner, and who will probably lose his job and many of his friends as a result of these public revelations. That's sucky. It's sucky when someone gets caught up in a DADT fiasco in the military and has to be discharged, it's sucky when a schoolteacher has to go through the wringer because of her personal life, and I wonder if it doesn't suck in very much the same way here. I think that there are large portions of the gay community who understand him and the situation in which he finds himself, and I pray that some of them find a heroic level of classiness to help him through his own darkness.
Also, as I said above, I want to live in a world where someone's sexual orientation is not cause for snide humor or a feeling that they're about to face social justice for their gayness. That, with all due respect, is what the Enemy does, and I will therefore strive to create the world that does something better. I'm not an angel or a Pollyanna here: I want to stand in front of James Dobson's fat face and say "Metaphorically stoning a gay man isn't right EVEN if it's your best friend and someone who has spent years harming the gay community himself. Every gay person deserves social dignity and civil rights no matter what his political views are." Again, this is a moral position that I borrow from Jesus, who said that the most sensible way to overcome your enemies is to be better than they are, and I think that he was on to something.
I agree with Peg that "pity" is a good start for how I feel. I feel that the place that he is a pitiful state. But, again I don't know, I think about Desmond Tutu and Nelson Mandela who dismantled apartheid and then, instead of dancing on Botha and DeKlerk's ashes, developed a Truth and Reconciliation Commission to establish relationships based on a common history and a desire to understand each other. I think that is a wonderful model: using the power of Right to defeat Wrong, but then to use your power to purify the Wrong rather than just leaving it to fester in a dark corner to rise again later. I want to do that more often, not only because it is just and feels good, but because it is building the foundation of the next generation's ethics on love and understanding rather than on one week's tactical "gotcha" win.
Anyway, long and boring and probably not well written, but I didn't mean to imply that he deserved a free pass.