Changing my mind.
I apologize that this turned out to be one juggernaut of a 1,700 word entry.
Yesterday I tossed around in my mind a comment a friend posted online. The comment went as such: “Marriage is only for a man and a woman.” Simple enough right? Just two years ago I would have muttered “uh-huh” while my head nodded in agreement; now something is different.
I figure the long bridge between my mind and my mouth should be drenched in yellow paint. There’s these warnings on the paint claiming “Project incomplete and in process, not a good idea to cross.” But I don’t care and I let my undeveloped ideas march across that bridge. I catch myself saying things that I used to believe yet now I completely disagree with. Does this ever happen to you? You are in deep explaining yourself to a friend or convincing yourself and you realize you don’t even agree with the idea you are pushing.
That’s where I start to laugh at myself and swing open the gates to change… oh bright sunny clarity of self-improvement. Here’s what I mean, two examples as exhibits in my mind.
EXHIBIT 1:
I’m no longer as racist as I used to be. I’m also damn proud of that; I worked hard to change.
While I was a child, my father explained to me that people of different color were not to be trusted, and blacks, those degenerates are all criminals. All of them.
Even though I respected my father and wanted his approval, this made me my reason sick even as a young pup. It didn’t seem right inside of me. Yet as time moved on I adapted many of his thoughts; was I slowly changing into him?
An example of one silly racist moment: I was in a airport line impatiently arguing with a the check-in lady who happened to be black and I missed my flight leaving me with 24 hours to stew over my anger before the next flight flew in. I thought that I would be on a plane if I had spoken with a white lady instead. In retrospect, I was a fool.
I had a roommate named Adam that helped paint a new view in my mind. It was time to improve, I needed to get over this prejudice and told him some of the nonsense I have just told you. Adam had spent some years running summer camps that mixed all sorts of children with inner-city kids. He told me of one exercise he ran with a class of kids in a gymnasium. He had all the kids stand on a line in the center facing him. And then came the questions:
- “If you grew up with both a mom and a dad take a step forward.”
- “If your family ever had to rely on welfare, take a step back”
- “If your family owns a home and doesn’t have to rent take a step forward.”
- “If you’ve never met your father take a step back”
- “If you regularly have three meals a day take a step forward.”
- “If any members of your family have been or are currently in jail, take a step back”
- “If your parents attended college or any higher education take a step forward”
- “If your parent(s) never graduated from high school, take a step back”
…Questions of a similar nature continued for a few more telling steps.
If you are picturing this in your mind and you see a majority of white children in the front and a majority of poorer black children in the back you would be spot on. Not much of a surprise, children usually become a product of their environment. If we were born in a poor, violent, anti-intellectual environment, void of a good father figure or a host of other unconstructive environments, what do you think would happen to us?
No longer do I look down on others because they have a different look or use an unfamiliar vernacular. I realize I would act and be similar to them if I was born into their situation.
This doesn’t mean I applaud the black guy on the corner, selling weed to the neighborhood kids; I just realize I might very well be doing a similar thing if I was born into his shoes. Just because it seems horribly wrong to me in my paradigm and even though I would never live the life of a hood doesn’t mean it’s out there to think that I could be that very guy if I grew up tough and unloved.
There isn’t an easy answer; I now go out of my way to get to know people not like me to understand where they come from and battle my leftover racist views. I still have stereotypes in my mind but I’m learning to realize that we’re all the same species; I think that what forms us to the biggest extent are our surroundings.
EXHIBIT 2:
Yikes, this one is fresher than that yellow paint, and I’m still tracking prints all over trying to decide quite how I feel about it. It addresses the comment my friend said about anti-marriage for gays.
Being in a religion that preaches that homosexuality is a problem that can be overcome, I feel at odds with this idea and what my peers in my church would say. Nevertheless, if I go with the herd I’ll have that same sick reason in my head. I struggle to believe my opinion because one of my personal hero’s, and former leader of my church said:
“We love these people (gays) and try to work with them and help them. We know they have a problem. We want to help them solve that problem. ” - Gordon B. Hickley
How can I go against someone far smarter than myself who taught me so much on how to stand tall and raise a banner for virtue and moral life? I guess because I’m following his advice on staying true to myself. I don’t believe gays have a problem, I think only a minority has this same sex orientation but because it is foreign to the majority of us we reject them. I think the problem is how we view people who aren’t like us, morally I think we need to allow them to live life as a first rate citizen.
I used to be anti-gay and very much anti-gay-marriage. Two years ago I would have damned California and parts of Canada for allowing legal union for gays.
Well here is why I have switched sides of the debate. I imagine someone telling me that I have to stop acting on my impulse to date, build relationships and enjoy intimate moments with women. They tell me, “hey it’s a lifestyle that is not ordained by the law of nature or by God.” But inside of me I can in no way switch my attraction to men nor do I want to live a life without love and sex with someone I love.
Not only do they tell me I’m a sinner and doomed to hell, they insult my intellect by telling me that it was a voluntary choice to love women and that I can change my lifestyle to love guys. Now in my head the thought of seeing a man’s bits makes me gag, heck looking at my own unsymmetrical set-up isn’t my idea of and ideal Friday night. But show me an attractive scantly clad woman and we all know by the smile on my face I’m sold.
My desire to have a special woman as my partner shapes my life and I know how happy I have been in previous relationships so eventually I want to marry a female partner for life.
Sure… you know where this is headed. What if a guy or gal has that same desire like me except it’s for a member of the same sex? Its not a rebellious phase or fun lifestyle idea. No it’s genuine desire to be with one of the same sex and to lead a fulfilling life.
Or perhaps it’s an adult who was born with both genitals and the parents had to choose at a young age weather to snip or to sew? Now this full-grown woman feels like a man inside and wants to rendezvous with other women? Do we tell them that they cannot because they have the same equipment? NO to love and happiness for you!
So you live in America and are allowed a pursuit of happiness unless you are a homosexual? Yikes.
Now I in no way condone the lifestyle some gays lead in having many different sexual partners. This causes many negative things including outbreaks of STDs and just like a heterosexual switching partners every week, it’s plain trashy. Nevertheless, saying no to marriage for gays outlaws a special union between two people who love each other and could take care of each other while staying monogamous.
So yeah I won’t go with what the bible says or doesn’t say on this. To me it is extraneous; what matters is what the morals in my heart are telling me. I’m libertarian and feel that everyone should do as they please as long as it doesn’t affect others to the negative. I want to make this part clear, as of yet I DO NOT have any opinion on whether married homosexual couples should be allowed to raise children as this brings a third party into the picture.
Honestly I hope I don’t approach other topics like a girl I dated for a couple weeks last year. She told me that gays disgusted her and bragged to me how her dad would tell her stories about how he beat up gays in high school. Clap clap… it turned my stomach to hear her go on about how they are disgusting people; there weren’t too many dates after that.
I plan to keep my mind as open as possible before I become old and hard, it will inevitably happen. The generation following us will shake their heads at how we view some things just like we sometimes shake our heads at our elders.
Comments
No easy answers man.
I have a million thoughts but I know my mind will change tomorrow. These are hard questions to settle answers on I swear.
I never thought you had any racism in you man so that was really stunning to hear you say that.
But then again I’m afraid of most black people because they all have guns…haha…I kid.
But realistically I think we avoid dialogue with people who we are so different from. Most of the black kids I see around here probably listen to rap, based on their appearance. They dress so much differently, talk so much differently, and I just don’t feel like I can relate to them.
It makes it difficult. I’m just scared of what I don’t understand…and I hate rap music…
Thoughtful words, and you know how I feel on the homosexual issue. The sadness inside me though would ask the same question that Will Smith asks in “Pursuit of Happyness”, is it just a pursuit? Is happiness something that can really be attained?
For a lot of us perhaps yes, but for our homosexual brothers and sisters it may not be attainable in a society that judges them because of something as basic as their need for companionship. My heart always goes out to them for the pain they must feel as they struggle to come to terms with those feelings.
I feel quite similar. Ya know though, its hard to discount what good ol Gordon said. Sometimes the one thing that sustains my previous stalwart notions of our faith are the words of the brethren. To hear him say that “they have a problem”, and then to discount that statement simply by comparing what it would feel like if we had to enter into an eternal institution with another bro…. it may be a fallacious development of logic ya know? Maybe the comparison ain’t apples ta apples if ya catch my drift. It definitely seems like a legitimate flip, but I’m just throwin out a possibility. To me it comes back to what the Lord told Joseph Smith in Section 121. “… No power of influence can or ought to be maintained by virtue of the priesthood alone, only by…. pure knowledge…” I know its a bit out of context but the idea is that, without a pure or complete knowledge of a situation, how can we really know the eternal stance, verdict, and/or judgement. There are clearly many different variables to be considered when deciding a stance on this issue… you racist BastarD!!!!!
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