Combating Ignorance.

I have had a few interesting (read painful) conversations the past couple of weeks, that I would like to share.

The first is with a few people who I would have called some of my best friends, until I saw the way they reacted to my coming out, and leaving the church. They truly believe that I am morally wrong for choosing to be open, and deciding to act on my innate nature, and choosing to be gay. See I might not choose my feelings, but by choosing to act on them I am choosing to be gay. and I suppose that maybe there is some truth in that. I am choosing to identify and live my life as a gay man. Do you know why? It is because the years I spent trying to be a straight man were some of the worst of my life. But affirming, and choosing this new identity has made me at peace with myself, which is worth any conflict I have to deal with outside of myself.

But one of my friends truly believes that I wasn't always this way. He told me that I was interested in girls before he was. That I seemed to want to date girls, and then I went to school and took all those gender classes and decided to be gay.

I tried to explain to him, that I have never been sexually attracted to a woman, or felt the way about a girl that he probably has. But I did have a few close female friends and that I recognized that when a guy and a girl became that close they were supposed to start dating. I thought that I must be feeling what other people call attraction and romance. It was only when I gained the vocabulary to realize and understand the feelings I had for certain guys, that I realized that whatever I had felt for any female would never match the things I feel for certain guys. And I made that realization in the middle of junior high, and then spent the next 6 years fighting against it. Believing that 'Gay' could just be an adjective to describe certain thoughts and actions, and not a noun to describe me.

I guess my friend is right in a way. My gender classes and other sociology classes did have a profound impact on me, but they didn't make me gay. Rather, they helped make me comfortable with a part of myself that I had always reviled. They gave me the courage I needed to CHOOSE to come out. and to CHOOSE to be honest with myself about what I want. I guess he can keep arguing that it is a choice, but this choice has made my life worth living, instead of something to merely be endured.

The next conversation was over facebook, with a girl who came to my gospel essentials class when I taught it. And she seemed to think that I had a much stronger testimony and belief than I actually did at the time she knew me. But I guess that isn't her fault, as the lesson plans I was given mandated me to bear my testimony about things I wasn't sure I believed. But I did it, hoping that it was true that a 'testimony is to be found in the bearing of it'. But it wasn't. At least not for me. And that is one of the reasons I started separating myself from church. It was ok to go and slide under the radar, but to have to go and lie every week about the things I believed was too painful. When they changed the ward mission leader though I just stopped teaching, and they replaced me, so that ended up being okay.

But here is our conversation:

Church ‘friend’: so i herd you thought it would be fun to deny the church and claim to me an athiest?

be

Me: I don't believe I have ever belittled your beliefs, so do me a favour and don't belittle mine.

Church ‘friend’: ummm if your athiest dosnt that kinda mean you dont have any

Me: If you think that you are grossly misinformed. I believe in lot's of things. I believe all human beings should have the same rights, and that one of those rights is to marry whoever they want. I believe that it is wrong to deny civil liberties to any person just because you believe them to be evil. I believe that even when God says slavery and genocide are okay, it is still wrong.

I just don't believe in god.

Church ‘friend’: sorry i just thought it was sad that someone that knows the truth of the gospel would just walk away from it. sorry to bother you.

you have your agency do with it what you will. bye

Me: What truth did I know? For the record, the years I spent in the church were the most miserable of my life. And as I have watched my mormon friends walk away from me, or try to save me because I think differently than them, I have to ask if they were ever really my friends. My other friends accept the new me, who is more honest, more fulfilled, and more positive.

But thank you for your close minded bigotry.

Church ‘friend’: really Allen*?

Me: really what? I'm not sure part what you are unsure of, but yes.

Church ‘friend’: then be accepted by the world.

Me: Maybe the world will accept me, and maybe it won't. But what is important is that I can finally accept myself.

Church ‘friend’: i kinda just wanted to hear it for my self. i almost didnt belive you gave it up.

and for the record just because you walked away from the church dosnt mean i have somthing against you. i just thouhgt it was sad. i respect everyone and their choices.

Me: Go back and read your first comment again, and then tell me you are being respectful of my choices. You didn't ask me what happened to make me change my mind, you accused me of "claiming" to be an atheist because it would be fun.

Church ‘friend’: my dad chose not to be a member of the church for 16 of my 20 year i was. and my brother who was raised in the church now wears a cross. and fyi fun is a word i use often.

but iv never understood why people do it

anyways work calls gotta jet

I don't think I need to say anything else about that conversation. It speaks for itself.

The final one was with my parents. It has been interesting to watch them process all of the new information I am feeding them, and encouraging them to see. I showed my Mom this video last week, that I had posted on my tumblr, and after watching it she was nearly crying.

While she still believes in the church, and in certain things the church has said, she also recognizes that so much of what has been said came from a place of fear and othering, and not from a place of acceptance or even understanding. She had a gay uncle who killed himself, which I think makes her quicker to see things outside of the approved church view.

My Dad on the other hand is not so quick to come around. He is trying really hard to correlate me with his beliefs but I can see it is a struggle for him. He was trying to tell me why a new word, and a new institution should be good enough for gay people, so we don't have to redefine marriage. I told him that is wrong, and sets us up as second class citizens. We have already redefined so many words, like family, and parent, so why not marriage as well. I told him that the holocaust didn't start with killing jews and homos, that first they identified them, and made them wear stars and pink triangles, so people would start to see them as Jews and gays first, and as people second, and that a different kind of marriage would accomplish the same thing.

I told him that my marriage (if I ever choose to get married) would be just like his, and that the only thing that is different is the genitalia of my partner.

He tried to argue about the declining morals of society, so I explained to him that he didn't get to call himself a moral agent, because the only moral he believes in is obedience. He can condone all the killing, and child sacrifice, and genocide in the bible, because god commanded it. And if God commanded it again, he would hear and obey. My morality on the other hand comes from a place of reasoning, and deciding what is right and wrong.

He said that IF i could live that way that way, he would be proud of me. I asked why he phrased that in a way that seemed to assume I can't, and he didn't have an answer.

The conversation ended with him withdrawing to his room when he could see that not only did neither me or my mother value his opinion, but that it was offensive. I felt bad that I had to be so harsh with him, but on the other hand I do feel a need to show him why the things he believes about me, and what rights I should be allowed to have are wrong and offensive.

Anyways that is all. This post is already much longer than I intended it to be, but, despite the ignorance from so many around me, it is nice to see my parents taking in new information, and becoming more accepting. They still get defensive, even my Mom, about certain things, like when I mentioned I was considering talking to my nephews and neices at some point, because I didn't want the church to be their only source of information, so that they could believe I am bad, but still a huge amount of progress from my parents. Something I am very thankful for.