Choices

When I woke up this morning, I made a number of choices. I decided to get up early and check e-mail. I chose to feed the cat and play with him. I stopped for breakfast on my way to work. I made those and numerous other decisions before the sun was fully over the horizon today.

I did not decide that today I would be a heterosexual. In fact, I've never made that choice. Even before puberty descended upon me, I was attracted to cute girls, and that has never changed. It just came naturally.

I was fortunate that, with the occasional objection of an object of my desire, this "lifestyle" was not condemned by anyone. I've never heard a preacher tell me I was a sinner because I was a practicing heterosexual, and I've yet to endure a politician drone on about legislation that would deny me the right to marry someone of the opposite sex. As a result, I've never struggled with my sexuality--nobody every told me my natural desires were wrong, and I've always felt free and unencumbered to express and explore them.

If I had grown up in a home where I was raised by two gay men or two lesbians who railed against heterosexual relationships and told me how dirty and sinful they were, I very well could have run into some serious issues. Low self esteem and sexual confusion would have been among the likely possibilities.

If religious leaders had condemned my desires for women, I probably would have pulled away from God, not feeling myself worthy of his love because of what a dirty, rotten sinner I was at heart. I may have even felt no other choice but to find a nice man to settle down with if I wanted love and companionship within socially accepted parameters.

If I had "come out" as a heterosexual, then renounced it so I could marry someone my church and state found was of an acceptable gender, I would be a "cured" or "delivered" heterosexual, even if the desires were still burning inside me.

If, like me, you are a practicing heterosexual, try to imagine this having happened to you. Pretty horrible picture, isn't it? Then why do so many of our churches and politicians insist on putting gay and lesbian people through this type of living hell? What good can come of a person denying who he or she is and allow themselves to be reformed according to someone else's idea of who they should be? Why do so many people allow themselves to be swayed by statements and beliefs rooted in ignorance?

Fortunately, we can trust God to sort it out in the end.