For anyone else reading, it's a sermon about a pastor's experience dealing with his homosexual attraction. It was an interesting sermon and I actually really enjoyed it until he got into the idea of nature vs. nurture. He blamed his homosexuality on the relationship he had with his parents and then proceeded to generalize that everyone he knew with homosexual attractions had the same type of relationship with theirs. Well, from there I was kind of turned off to most of what this guy had been saying. Being a psych major I know what perceptions can do to any objective listening experience. I tried to keep an open mind for the remainder of his speech.
Well this guy has been going to therapy in an attempt to become heterosexual. A large chunk of his speech was basically an explanation for why he believes he is attracted to men. Something I learned by studying psychology is that the brain loves to be rational. Listening to his story and his explanation, all I could think of was that this is a combination of psychobabble and a desperate attempt at his left hemisphere to rationalize uncertainty.
In my senior psychology seminar I wrote a paper on the left brain interpreter. Basically it is the part of the brain responsible for confabulation, the replacement of a gap in a person's memory by a falsification that he or she believes to be true. While this sounds like something only crazy people do, know this, EVERYONE confabulates. What separates most people from the crazies is that the crazy ones do it without provocation, we do it only when it is necessary. Our necessity stems from our mind not being able to chalk things up to randomness, it constantly seeks pattern and order in a world of chaos. It leads to so many other problems and myths including gambling habits, but I digress. I'll try to attach the paper if you are really interested.
Anyways, listening to this man talk I could kind of relate to some of his arguments. The most piercing of his arguments was his desire for marriage and children, to which I can relate. [Side note, there was no question of nature vs. nurture when he thought about being with a woman- just because it's the "norm" does not mean that society plays no role in bringing about this desire. I mean there is a part of me that hates the idea that I'm probably not going to get to fulfill that dream we all grow up holding on to, but I know there is no repressing who I am. I talked with a friend of mine who actually has a son, and he told me "yeah I could obviously be attracted enough get it up, but that doesn't mean I was happy with a woman." That really hit me hard when he said that. It has actually helped me come to terms with a lot of my own feelings.] When the pastor mentioned his hope to battle through and marry a wife and have a family, I wonder if he means can he fool himself enough into getting a woman pregnant and calling it a day? I know marriage is no fairy tale for most people, add latent homosexuality and you're just asking for a mess. I'm slowly beginning to accept the idea that it's actually ok for me to be gay. To embrace who I am, even if it's not the norm and especially not how I pictured my life when I was younger.
The pastor admitted his need to repress his homosexual desires. He does it for Jesus, he denies himself a shot at happiness because he feels god frowns on gay people. I understand that throughout history the clergy have given up many things in their service to god, but I thought that was mainly in Catholicism. I guess I'm lucky I'm not christian or super religious because it's one less hurdle I have to jump in my own mind when thinking about this.
Anyways... I'm attaching the sermon at the bottom. It's about 30 min, but I think worth the listen if you have some time.
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