Some Gays Can Go Straight, Study Says

[Belacqua]

From all the convos we've ever had on here, one thing I'm pretty sure is that homophobic you are not... far from it; you seem very liberal minded to me, and hell, seem to have more gay friends than I do So whatever your leanings toward Christianity/theology, there's nothing you've ever said to me that suggests you have the sort of anti-gay agenda that usually goes hand in hand with it.

Years ago when I was working at the Metropolitan Museum's medieval branch, up at the northern end of Manhattan, we actually realized that I was the only straight white man employed in the building. I'll bet the art and design world was about half gay people in those days. And probably now it has the whole rainbow -- trans and gender fluid and everything else -- far more in evidence than in most arenas. If my white small town childhood gave me any homophobia it didn't survive contact with so many talented individuals. 

(At the last gallery I worked in, the guy I worked most closely with came to work in tears one day, because his boyfriend had left him. But his boyfriend had left him for Michael Stipe, the singer in the band REM, so he said, "I'd leave me for him, too!")

The theological issues with being gay seem less clear to me than they do to a lot of American Christians, I guess. Until the 19th century, nobody condemned homosexuality but they did condemn sodomy. The idea of orientation or intrinsic desire was moot -- morality only depended on what one did, and straight people have as many opportunities to enjoy non-approved sex as anybody else. (Without going into detail, so do I.) 

I suspect that anti-gay feeling is more something cultural that soaks into Christianity, the way capitalism does in American Christianity. It depends on the time and place, whether they get worked up about it or not. In the Renaissance the Vatican employed an artist known to everyone as Sodoma, because of his well-known preferences, and nobody worried about it. (And Leonardo's and Michelangelo's tastes were just as well-known.) Christianity is so malleable that I don't see homophobia as something intrinsic to it. 

In fact the way some ages seem to condemn homosexuality more than others is related to the thread topic, I think. The issue to me is: how malleable is human nature? Do all humans have certain characteristics in common, or does it just seem that way due to the prejudices of our age? So for example capitalists say that we are by nature greedy, and capitalism is good because it supposedly harnesses that for the greater good. But I think we may be more capable of variety than is generally known. Non-greedy societies might be possible. And since sexuality is apparently a significant part of human nature, the possibilities of variety in that aspect of our selves is an important topic -- and one that for whatever reason is particularly in the news today. 

Things like 'conversion therapy' make my blood boil, not just the ludicrous notions that it could ever work to 'pray the gay away', or the downright insulting misuse of the word 'therapy' there, but most importantly that anyone should propose or feel pressured to try something like that in the first place. 

Absolutely in agreement here. Even if it's true that one's place on the LGBT spectrum may change over a lifetime, that change must come from within the individual. Attempts at forcing anyone would be evil.