True love

Dear Caroline,

Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.

I write this letter to you while watching a documentary.  It is called The Strange History of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. It tells the story of one form of discrimination that prevails in my time. The documentary introduced me to the history of how the military policy began and its impact not only on individuals but society at large.

Homosexuals have been serving in militaries since the inception of militaries. I don’t think anyone can deny this fact. Many of the greatest military leaders in terms of successful campaigns were gay. Homosexuals served openly until World War Two when the military needed to save money! It was an eye-opening documentary. Three main points stood out to me and I’d like to dissect them with you.

-Hiding yourself

            The largest thing that stood out to me was that this policy made it impossible for people to be genuine. I take my heterosexuality for granted as well as my relationship with my husband. I cannot even count how many times a day I mention Thomas or my husband. So much of your life is spent with this person and to have to hide him or deny him would crush me. I think it would take away a part of who I am as a person. I ask any “straight” person to deny the person they love the most to every single person they meet or encounter. It hurt me so badly and I had tears in my eyes to hear the stories of servicemen and women. One lesbian said that she built large privacy fences in her yard so that she could be herself without lying to anyone. Her partner said that if they were out in public and someone from work saw her wife she would keep walking and pretend she didn’t even know her! In what way is that right? I challenge a straight person to do the same. In my mind service people are honest and decent. This policy makes it impossible for any gay service person to be honest or genuine. Which brings me to the next point of…

-Unit Cohesiveness

            I love the people I work with and I feel as though it is because we are so open and honest with each other. I can’t imagine being friends with someone who could not, by law, be themselves with me. On the video it discussed a serviceman who has been written up for “anti-social” behavior due to his inability to speak of his life to his co-workers. I think that inability to trust someone would disrupt unit cohesiveness much more than finding out they were gay. I also think that it stands to reason that the straight man is more at fault than the gay man. As a straight woman, I can honestly say that I am not attracted to every man and I don’t project that on to anyone. I think it stands to reason that every gay man is not attracted to every man either. It is the straight man who is so arrogant in himself that projects that on to the gay man. It is also a standard that most, if not all, of our allies in the world allow gays to openly serve in the military without everything ending or suffering a breakdown of their militaries. I think homophobia within society is the blame for the argument of unit cohesiveness.

-Homophobia in relation to Christianity

            I think I am a strange Christian and Catholic. I have always believed in relativity within religion. I will be the first to tell you that Christianity does not have a monopoly on the “truth” and it is entirely possible that there is no God at all. One of the many reasons I am Catholic is because of the focus of this life rather than having a preoccupation with heaven. Catholics do not believe that heaven is a certainty and we should not speculate on people who get to heaven meaning just because someone said they were a Christian does not guarantee a place in heaven. Only God knows people’s hearts and it is not our place to speculate on who gets into the Kingdom of Heaven. Even Judas might have had a deathbed conversion; we honestly cannot know his heart. (Judas is a whole other story.) I firmly believe there will be gays in heaven and many evangelists in hell. It is not my job or my purpose to judge anyone. It is my purpose to live my life according to God’s will and love my neighbor as myself. If you know love then you know God. That is the entire reasoning behind baptism by desire. I know many more compassionate and loving homosexuals than I know evangelists.  I believe that there is a dignity that should be respected given directly from God to every being. It is a travesty to deny that dignity for any reason but especially for God’s sake. This is a larger issue of homophobia within all churches that is ugly and incompatible with Christ.

I can honestly say that many of the best people in my life are gay. I think I would be less of a person without having known them. What I find hilarious is that “conservatives” only see the sexuality within them without having known them. When introducing a friend, I describe who they are not who they date! And yet this small part of who they are is the only thing “conservatives” see. My parting words are GET OVER IT!

Wish #16: I wish for you to find your soulmate regardless of where it is found.

Love always