Creative Nonfiction Blog by Brenda Gaines Hunter

SCOTUS and Gay Marriage

Conservatives believe that because SCOTUS is right-leaning it will rule against gay marriage. However, what they are overlooking is Lawrence v Texas. There were not six liberal justices on the bench when SCOTUS ruled against Texas 6-3. We have to see. Gays have nothing to lose by taking it before the Supreme Court. We just need a really good attorney.

INTJ

I'm going through another period of being very tired. Maybe I do more than I think I do, because I end up really exhausted sometimes when it seems like I haven't done much. I guess if I sit and take an inventory of my doings over the last three months, I'll find that there has been a great deal of movement. It seems strange, but the thing that is really getting to me is that I cannot seem to stop reading. I have about twenty (maybe more) magazines and another twenty articles that I'm saving right now, because I'm reading other things. I have also contacted a couple of publications about being a contributing writer for their publications. I have articles and essays that I can easily adapt.

Response: As Old As Dirt

Societies have a lot of institutions, besides marriage, that are "as old as dirt": education, politics, economics, etc. However, societies have allowed those institutions to evolve. Very few of us are still hunters and gatherers, for instance. And teachers rarely teach in outdoor lyceums. Rarely are kings the sole rulers of countries and such skills as reading and writing are now available to the masses and not just to kings and priests. I should point out that homosexuality is as old as dirt as well. After all, the Bible mentions it.

About DADT

I now believe it is time for President Obama to issue an executive order repealing "Don't Ask Don't Tell." The vast majority of Americans, including the troops, support its repeal, so politically President Obama has nothing to lose by issuing an executive order and doing so would just simply be the right thing to do.

This is the problem with religions

This is the problem with religions: They keep moral matters rooted in ancient times when people believed the world was flat, and they defend barbarism as tradition.

...and the problem with conversations about God is that everyone defines God differently, and we tend to assume that 95% of people see God as we do. To me, God is synonymous with mystery. So once we believe we can explain and understand God, then the conversation no longer is about God, but instead about ourselves. Most people who believe in God believe in God as a "first cause" or "creator of everything." It is often when we believe we know God's intentions that things go awry and our egos take over. When we speak of God's divine intentions and plans for our universe, what we are really saying is, "If I were God, then my intent would be this ________". The story of God is the story of people. It is a story about the ideal version of ourselves, and we don't all envision ourselves in the same way.

Tyranny of the Majority

You have the right to your opinion only as an opinion is what many people just don't seem to understand. You think your opinion should be the basis for law is the problem. Each of us are given inalienable rights in the Constitution. Inalienable means that they cannot be abridged by popular vote. If you read the Federalist Papers, you'd find that was by design. There really is a doctrine called, "Tyranny of the Majority." The founding fathers realized that they had to protect the rights of the minorities, especially the beliefs of minority religions, such as Quakerism. Not once does the Constitution mention God or Jesus or Abraham or Mohammad or Buddha. It is a secular document and any other reading of it is an emotional rather than a legal reading. See, what many religious people are failing to realize is that religion is a choice. Why should something you choose to believe in be used to dictate other people's lives when they disagree with your beliefs and am harming no one? You can change your religion much, much more easily than I can change my sexual orientation. You are free to believe as you like, but you are not free to harm others with it.

How I Can Tell You Are a Bigot

Judges from various districts, whom we pay well and whom are well educated and highly experienced in interpreting the law, are saying that these various policies and laws on the books denying gays and lesbians equal rights are unconstitutional, but people still come on these boards and claim that their own bigotry is justified. As a matter of fact, they claim that their bigotry is not bigotry--just a different viewpoint. There are people on these boards who are otherwise intelligent until they come across something of which they cannot tolerate, and then they become emotional and irrational. They ignore overwhelming evidence that their point of view is wrong. That's how I can tell that you are a bigot. Psychiatrists say that homosexuality is not a mental illness (unless the person cannot accept it) nor a sexual deviancy, but instead a variant sexuality. But you know more? Biologists have observed homosexuality in more than 1500 species. But you ignore the evidence? Everyone may not be on planet earth to procreate. Perhaps your assumptions are wrong? There are other roles that need to be fulfilled--(birth control--especially when there was no synthetic birth control, foster parenting, etc., since some people breed but cannot handle the responsibility). The fact that you ignore rigorous contradictory evidence to hang on to nonsense shows that you are a bigot--not just simply someone with an alternate viewpoint. That is why your ilk keeps losing in court. The military was integrated via executive order issued by Harry S. Truman. Obama can do the same. If it comes down to gays and not being able to openly serve, then they should out themselves immediately. Let Congress bring back the straight draft.

The experts on your side haven't been able to produce anything more than junk science. That's because that is all your side has. So I'm confident that you wouldn't be able to provide anything more than, "I don't like homosexuals or the Bible says or they are perverts or heterosexuality is superior."

My Gay Identity and My Relationship With God

I intend to turn this into a longer identity piece that includes more extensive research. In the meantime, I'm parking it here.  In it's present form, it is sort of an open letter.

First off, homosexuality is not a sin. When taken in context every passage in the Bible that deals with homosexuality does so within the context of male rape and prostitution and group sex in pagan temples--not within consensual, monogamous relationships. The sins are rape, prostitution, and promiscuity. Further, Samuel 18:1 states "...Jonathan became one in spirit with David and he loved him as himself." (New International Version, NIV) Samuel 20:41 offers us this insight into David and Jonathan's relationship: "After the boy had gone, David got up from the south side of the stone and bowed down before Jonathan three times, with is face to the ground. Then they kissed each other and wept together - but David wept the most." (NIV) Finally, Samuel 1:26 reads,"I grieve for you, Jonathan my brother; you were very dear to me. Your love for me was wonderful, more wonderful than that of women." David's and Jonathan's relationship was likely romantic and/or sexual. Men and women in ancient times did not have platonic relationships. They were either married or there was no relationship. So when David says that Jonathan's love was more wonderful than that of women he is talking about sexual relationships. It would make little sense for him to compare a platonic relationship to a sexual one.

Adam and Steve, Lol

God made Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve. How non-creative. You sound like a broken record. Yes, God obviously made Adam and Steve. The proof is in the fact that they both exist.

Sexual Identity = Self Identity

Sexual orientation is self identity. If there is any choice regarding sexual orientation it is related to the labels--not the behavior. We can call ourselves whatever we want. I used to sit on various nonprofit boards in San Francisco and on a committee where we made decisions about which organizations to give what amount of funds to be used for various HIV/AIDS programs. Many men who identify as heterosexual have more sex partners of the same sex in a year than some men who identify as gay or bisexual. That's why to fight the AIDS epidemic organizations have had to re-market their messages for MSMs--Men who have Sex with other Men. Since many do not identify as gay or bisexual, they pay no attention to safer sex messages aimed toward those populations. The organizations do not classify these men as gay or bisexual, because they can't. How gay is gay? How straight is straight? Sexual orientation is on a continuum.