I was not surprised that so many would take a "straight pill," only saddened. I didn't spend much time in the original poll thread because I knew from past experience that I'd get upset by the positive responses.
One of the things I've learned during my time here on JUB is just how different we all are, and the validity of opinions that I've never previously understood. Wanting to not be gay is certainly a valid standpoint, and I am learning to understand it, where in the past I would have summarily condemned such an attitude.
However, in many explanations of "Why I'd take the pill," I see two myths constantly recurring: Biblical proscription of homosexuality, and the belief that heterosexual life is "easier."
Neither are true.
First, on the Bible: the OT describes homosexual behavior as an abomination, not a sin. An abomination is a ritual uncleanness... non-kosher food, mildew, running sores, and a bunch of other weird things are all abominations, and trafficking in any of these things makes you ritually unclean and unable to enter the Temple until a certain number of animal sacrifices are made. However, the Abominations were
nullified by the ultimate sacrifice, the crucifixion of Christ. The Ten Commandments are upheld and summarized in the New Testament, but ritual law is
completely irrelevant.
The NT does not mention homosexuality
per se... those three or four modern versions of the Bible that
contain the word "homosexuality" are plainly and simply
misinterpreted. The bulk of the New Testament was written in Greek, you see, and the Greeks did not
have a word for homosexuality... they took the whole thing rather for granted, they didn't even need to describe it; the word "homosexual" was itself was not even
coined until the late 19th century.
None of the proscriptions against sexual behavior are contained in the teachings of Christ, only in the Epistles of Paul. Paul was against
all sex, by the way, not just adultery and fornication but even non-reproductive sex for married couples. He believed and taught that complete chastity and celibacy was the best and most righteous manner of life; for those who simply
could not control themselves, marriage and child-bearing were the second-best route.
Furthermore, most of the specific mentions of sexual proscription are concentrated in his letter to the church at Corinth, which was the ancient world's version of Las Vegas... a city dedicated to Venus/Aphrodite, in which sex played an enormous role in public life. It was a common practice for the citizens of Corinth to have sex with temple priests and prostitutes (male or female) on festival days and to curry favor with the goddess, and it was this practice that has been translated in later versions as "homosexuality."
For more information on this, check out
this page at the Metropolitan Community Church website. FYI.
Now, about straight life being easier... I never really realized before how difficult it
is to be gay in other parts of the world. I live and have always lived in a metropolitan area beside an international gay mecca, and it's fairly easy to be gay here... not a walk in the park, by any means, I still deal with homophobia and prejudice, even in my own family; but we don't have a lot of powerful churches here, and politicians daren't rile us. But I see now that my life would have been even
harder if I had been brought up in the Great Plains or the Deep South, or some small town where I was the "Only Gay in the Village." It wasn't until I started participating in JUB that I really came to understand what you guys who don't live in big enlightened cities go through.
Nevertheless, while it
is certainly easier to be straight than gay in these places, the tone of people who say they would take the Straight Pill is one that seems to
allow this difficulty... as if homophobia were
right somehow, as if people were
entitled to make life difficult for us.
See, it's not the homosexual
lifestyle that is difficult: it is the ignorance and hatred of
people who don't understand homosexuality and don't care about anyone different from themselves who
make life difficult
for us.
We are not in the wrong,
they are. I cannot stress that enough.
And really, straight life isn't any easier than gay life.
Everybody's life is hard. One life may
look harder than another from the outside, but each person's life is individual and on a certain level incomprehensible to anyone but that individual. We cannot know the pain that people who look like they have everything go through every day... it's the same pain that everyone else feels, it's just stimulated by different situations.
The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence, you know. And just because someone isn't being actively persecuted by the Religious Right and our own government doesn't mean that they don't have just as many sorrows and troubles as the rest of us.
So think about that before you volunteer for any ex-Gay studies, m'kay?
