I posted this video before and I am posting it again in preparation for entries that I am working on to be posted here in coming weeks on the topic of morality and homosexuality. I have thought for years about writing a book from my own personal experience and related research on this topic. I guess that I mistakenly thought that since I had already spent years of my life, praying and grappling with many of these questions, and had came to my own understanding of my identity and my relation to God, the world, my family and society, that I had in a sense paid my dues.

Being for the most part freed of the false-guilt, and having gone about attempting to build my life on a sense of integrity, instead of buying into the confusing preaching of years past that insulted my own soul and made, in my opinion, a mockery of God and my faith in Him, I figured that I could put those old arguments aside. For my own mental health’s sake I probably needed to adopt a “That’s settled; now we can move on to bigger, more important things” approach. And to be honest, after a while, I found I didn’t really want to return to those old questions. Why bother?

There are two reasons. Despite all logic, science and responsible interpretation of the Bible, I still see brothers and sisters struggling with this imposed guilt, peddled by people who have either never experienced their suffering, or as I once did, bought into it for fear of what they would discover about themselves upon closer examination. Those friends and family members have grown up with accusations being tossed at them from the pulpit nearly every Sunday for years. I have had questions just this week posed to me by a young friend who has struggled with this himself, who practically hates himself because he has been told that part of his very make up, not merely outward acts or inward temptations, but part of what makes up his personality, how he seems to be wired for affection in his life, has been vilified in the same manner that I experienced at his age more than 20 years ago. My research was good for my own sake, but what good does it do to brothers like him if people like me don’t share what we learned and how we survived?

The other reason is that I have been repeatedly addressed by certain people over the last 12 years, one a close relative of mine who online seems to speak to me only when it is about about this very issue (family gatherings are a different matter), in a way that leads me to believe that while most of their minds will likely not be changed, I still should make some attempt to address their questions, if only to be of assistance to those among us who are in doubt, or who sincerely want to know why people like me believe what we believe.

I have a few drafts now in these folders on WordPress and am considering using them as rough drafts for the book that apparently wants to be written. It’s not my whole life. It’s only a part, but it shouldn’t be tossed out as irrelevant either. I mean, I am a father, a poet, an amateur naturalist and birder. I am a friend and a companion and a brother; oh, and I happen to be gay. So, it’s time I return to these arguments and hash out my version and my understanding as best I can, once and for all.

In prelude to that here is the 8 minute clip from the excellent video (which I own and highly recommend) by Dr. John Corvino. Watch this space.