Those Godless Gays

I read a comment to a story about the gay marriages in New York in the online edition of The Deseret News. It said:

New York now rejects the moral definitions of its Judeo-Christian founders. It has defined same-sex marriage -- once the very epitome of being immoral -- as being moral. The godless among us are winning the battle of claiming that there is no such thing as a moral code, because they believe a moral code is the province of what they call, "weak minded religious people."

May the rest of the country wake up and more vigorously defend marriage as between a man and a woman, thus preserving traditional definitions of morality, before immorality is taught as morality to our children in schools.

I'm always bothered when people like this individual refer to those who support gay rights as being "godless." It's the same feeling I feel when those who believe in God accuse atheists as having no morals simply because they don't believe in God. I just don't get it.

Even if you believe homosexuality or gay marriage is wrong and that it goes against what God commands, isn't the term "godless" laying it on a bit thick? I mean if "godless" in this case means anybody who promotes or teaches or lives in a way that is contrary to what God teaches or commands, then aren't all of us "godless?" There's not one person on this earth who doesn't sin or do things that are contrary to what God has commanded them to do. If there were, why would we even need Jesus or his atonement? Plus, even if a person sins by this individual's definition, does that mean they are without God? Does that mean they have abandoned God or that God has abandoned them? Frankly, I can't imagine God abandoning anybody - at least not the God I know - so I hardly believe anyone is without God, even if they think they are.

Does this individual believe, then, that all people who support gay rights or who are gay don't believe in God? Well, that isn't true, either. I know many of us who do. I can assure you, I do not consider myself godless nor does my partner. I know many gay people and supporters of gay people who are very much worshipful of a god, whoever they deem that god to be. Many of us are living our lives trying to be the best people God has created us to be.

"Godless" is such a loaded term, and I find it very ignorant. I feel much the same way about gay-rights supporters calling anyone who disagrees with them "hateful." I do not feel everything is so black and white.

Think me immoral if you like (although I don't feel I am that, either), but please don't call me "godless."



Another comment I read in a Salt Lake Tribune article referred to two friends of mine who were among those who recently legalized their union in New York. The commenter called their union "disgusting" and "wrong." This couple has been in a committed, monogamous, loving relationship for 16 years (longer than some of the heterosexual couples I've known in my life). I know others who have shared their lives for far longer. Please explain to me what is so "wrong" and "disgusting" about that.

I don't know what opponents think is going to happen if gay people start getting married. Heck, it's been happening in Massachusetts for some time now, and the sky has not fallen. How is the union of two loving and committed people causing our world to go morally bankrupt? Please don't accuse me of indoctrinating your kids and recruiting them to be gay because that isn't how it works, folks. If your kid is gay, he or she is already gay. He or she doesn't need my help. Nobody recruited me, and I sure as heck am not getting a free toaster oven if I try to recruit you. I can no more make anyone out there gay than they can make me straight. I tried many a time to make myself straight, and I assure you, I'm just gay. That's just who I am.

And please don't tell me that if the gays start getting married, pretty soon people will be marrying their children or cats or refrigerators. It's about two consenting adults who love and are committed to each other and simply want the same ten thousand rights heterosexual people automatically get when they marry one another. Don't tell me we can have those rights just a freely and easily because we can't. Do you know the legal costs involved in some states? My friend (who has been with his partner for 20 years) paid $22,000 to get some of the same rights married heterosexuals get for free. Where's the equality in that?

I never asked to be gay and spent many years trying not to be. But I am. It's not going away, and I've reached a point in my life where I'm quite happy to be who I am. I feel God loves Jonah and me very much and blesses us each day. No "godlessness" over here, I promise you.

I know people out there think homosexuality is a sin and draws one away from God. I disagree with them, but if they want to think that, I suppose that is their prerogative. All I would say to them is if they really got to know some gay people on a personal level, they might see us in a different light, and even if they still disagreed with us, they might at least realize that it is not their place to judge us, but God's. As for me, I'm quite at peace in my relationship with my Father in Heaven.