The reason I am starting this new blog is because there are a lot of times when I want to talk about things that are not exactly relevant to my other blogs. Some of these are religious issues, some are LGBT issues (non-political), and others are something else entirely. I wanted to dedicate this first post to something that my sister and I were talking about the other day.
We were talking because I read this blog post which a friend who is a priest posted on Facebook. In the blog post, the writer (a Catholic who is gay), says that he prefers the descriptor same-sex attraction to gay "because [same-sex attraction] suggests that homosexuality is something I have rather than something I am." In other words, he looks at homosexuality as an affliction or a disease rather than as something which is inborn. This is the very reason that I reject this euphemism. By equating homosexuality with a disease this encourages the use of "reparative therapy" (see this page also) which can be very barbaric. The other problem is that if you use the logic that homosexuality is an affliction, then so must heterosexuality and by extension all sexuality. After all, if "same-sex attraction" is "something that [you] have rather than something that I am" then the same must also be true of other sexual orientations. This, in turn, makes sexuality something to be suffered from rather than an integral and beautiful part of who we are.
This, in turn, leads to the main point of this post. One thing both my sister and I do not like is when people define themselves entirely based on one aspect of who they are. It doesn't matter whether that aspect is the person's sexual orientation, religion, race, sex, gender, or any other one, no one of these can possibly hope to define anyone in all their glory. I am gay. I am Catholic. I am a white male. I am English, Irish, Scottish, Welsh, German, Dutch, Polish, and Native American. I am blonde haired and blue eyed. I am a moderate Republican. I am all of these and so much more. To use any one of these to define me is to miss out on so much that I am.
Most people would object to being defined by one of these aspects, yet most people insist on defining others in this way. Also, we often self-define ourselves by saying things like, "I am _______," as if that one thing is the most important thing about us. I remember an assignment I did with my 8th grade class in 2008 based on the One Tree Hill episode "Pictures of You" in which the characters had to learn about each other using labels. I did the same thing with the class and showed them that even though the labels may be accurate, they are incomplete and can be hurtful.
The deal with labels is also about the power of words. Words and the way they are used have a tremendous amount of power. When someone says that "I am _________,"the implication is that is all they are rather than a part of who they are. When you define yourself or someone else based on one thing, you are limiting the perception of who you or they are in a radical way. Don't limit yourself or anyone else in this way. We need to acknowledge the entirety of who each person is in order to acknowledge their full inherent human dignity.
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