In response to the cover story in the March Record, one must pose these questions to all the readers of the article: How many members of the LGBT community do you know? Have you ever knowingly shaken hands with one? Has one of them ever been your “good Samaritan”? Have you ever been to a party and danced with a lesbian, or gone to a movie with one? Have you ever shared a bedroom with a homosexual? What about visiting a couples’ home? Do you think that a gay couple always shares the same bedroom? Will you avoid sitting in the same pew?
In my own personal experience, I have done all of the above, except avoiding sitting in the same pew. As a human being, I have learned to accept LGBT members as human beings; but as human beings go, I get along with most, but not all, just the same as I do with so-called “straight” people. Yet, if a couple is “marked by deep love and care” as one of the writers says, why should they not be together just like heterosexual couples? We should rejoice at their mutual love.
I have had quite a number of experiences, many good, some few bad, with members of the LGBT community because they are all human beings. It bothers me that we refer to the LGBT as a “community,” a group set apart from other groups. But each church is a community of believers, and quite a few gay persons are believers, and, as such, are part of some church communities, and shouldn’t really have to have their own church. So, what am I supposed to do next Sunday? Am I to go to all the gay persons attending worship that day to say: “So long, it’s been good to know you, but you can’t stay?” Perhaps I should also speak to the blacks, Chinese, Pakistanis, and Koreans to ask them to leave also. Then there are those who don’t agree with me: I’ve got them on my list. Wow! Look! I’m the only one left.
We get our knickers in a knot over the subject of sex. Sex-ed in the phys-ed curriculum in schools? Horrors! It is assumed by some that all lesbian couples are sexually involved and that gay men are definitely doing all kinds of sexual gymnastics. Well, if that’s so terrible and against what God intended, then why is it then acceptable for heterosexual couples to do the same things?
My thought is that we have never fully examined that we are human beings, and what part our sexuality weighs in our being human. Twenty years from now, historians will ask: Why was there a problem? Two thousand years ago, Gamaliel warned the Sanhedrin that if it be of man, it will fail, but if it be of God, one is in danger of fighting God. Jesus also said all of the Law and Prophets are to be interpreted in consideration of the laws to love God and to care for one’s fellow man or woman.
But how can one care for one’s neighbour, if one does not know him or her? Is it not time to get to know the LGBT? Coffee at Tim’s? Movie and a chat about it afterwards? A better idea is to invite a gay person to join you in a pew in church.
Something to think about, and act on!
Charles Diltz, via email
