Sometimes I feel that I'm living in an either/or world. Either you're gay or straight. Republican or Democrat. A Ute or a Cougar. Active LDS or apostate.
I'm glad to have seen some recent discussion on the MoHo blogs about the Kinsey scale. I identify with those who say they are fours, but for me it has changed over time.
When I was first married and a young father, I would say I got down to a three, maybe even sometimes a two. As I've grown older maybe I'm just more honest with myself. For a decade or so, I'd say I'm at least a four, and many times a five.
In my bisexual way of thinking, I don't see my life as a married man and father who appears to be heterosexual as a fraud. It's the truth, just not the whole truth and nothing but the truth. To misquote Al Gore, it's a convenient truth.
There's just more to the story. As much as I love women in general and my wife as my friend, confidant, companion, partner and mother of our children, her touch is different than occasional male hug I am blessed with. (The difference is particularly notable when the hug comes from someone I am strongly attracted to.)
So here I am a bi-guy, a man who can (in theory anyway) love a greater variety of God's children than either a Kinsey 1 or 6. I'm also a Ute who doesn't hate the Cougars, an Obama supporter who likes Huntsman, an active LDS high priest who believes that the church will eventually revise the Proclamation on the Family.
How could that happen? Because I'm not always an either/or thinker, I can imagine a doctrine that upholds marriage between a man and a woman as ordained by God, and a modern-day revelation that marriages between same-sex couples are also fully acceptable.
One of the ideas that offers me the most hope actually comes from the Proclamation on the Family. It is this sentence: "Disability, death, or other circumstances may necessitate individual adaptation."
So yes, heterosexual marriage is of God, but for some of us "other circumstances may NECESSITATE individual adaptation." I can see the church eventually embracing this view, but then again I'm also old enough to remember the pre-1978 church which would have looked upon the marriage of Barack Obama's parents as something evil.
I think we are brothers from other mothers.
ReplyDeleteThanks, I agree. I also relate to much of what you wrote here.
ReplyDeleteSome only see black and white in this world. For them, there is no gray, there is no middle ground. Finding gray in things is muddying the water. Why would you want to do that?
ReplyDeleteFor me, all I see is gray. There are very few absolutes - even in the Gospel plan. There are so many variables and situations and circumstances that factor into each life. The Lord understands this and can see us as we individually are. And this includes our sexual orientation.
Behind you chronologically but with you on virtually every other point.
ReplyDeleteThanks Bravone, Beck and Alan.
ReplyDeleteBeck, Your thought about the Lord's understanding of us reminds me of the idea that not only does He know us, He knows us better than we know ourselves. He fully supports us in reaching our ideals, not becoming someone else, but growing fully into our own, unique selfhood.
Alan, Thanks for the affirmation. Since you live near D.C. will you be watching the Inauguration in person?