Celebrities, pop singers, politicians, and even religious people are coming out and revealing their true homosexual identity nowadays. Also, more and more people are recently becoming open-minded about homosexuals relationships, although there are still people who tend to see this kind of relationship as a taboo and as an immoral act. The church and the more conservative public are the usual activist against this issue in the society. However, it has also become evident that the homosexuals are also fighting for what they believe are their rights as free individuals.
Yet, it seems that no matter how open-minded other people try to be, there are still some aspects of this kind of relationship which the modern society is not familiar with. Huston and Schwartz noted in their works the several issues about homosexual relationships. Personally, I believe that their claims about the gay and lesbian relationships appear negative, as notes from their book would describe a common gay and lesbian relationship as a relationship which involves a fight for dominance (Houston & Schartz, 1995 cited in Cardwell, 2003).
Based on their works, I can sense that they see gay and lesbian relationships as a very shallow kind of relationship which can easily fall apart. Given this idea, I would have to disagree with their view about homosexual relationships. I cannot see any reason why the society should not approve of homosexual relationships. Firstly, these people are human beings who have feelings and emotions which cause them commit and devote themselves to their partner and their relationship.
It just so happened that they were not able to feel that feeling towards the opposite sex, which the traditionalist and moralists cannot seem to understand at the moment. I know people who are engaged in a homosexual relationship, and I cannot understand why other people consider them as immoral. Most of the gays and lesbians I know became aware of their sexual identity and preference as early as childhood. They were just not able to reveal their identity early on since many are still scared of or disgusted by this kind of idea. However, being a gay or a lesbian is not always a choice which an individual makes.
Most of the time, it comes innately to that individual. Given this, how can people blame gays and lesbians for having that identity when they cannot even do anything about it because they woke up in this world having that personality already? Aside from the fact that gay and lesbians often have that difficulty in admitting to themselves that they have a homosexual identity, one of the most difficult issues that they often face is how they can be accepted in the society. In some industrialized countries like the United States and Japan, most members of the society have already accepted homosexuals as legal members of the society.
However, there are other gays and lesbians all over the world aside from those who are in the said countries. We can just imagine how hard it is for them to go out and face the world when the world they are living in actually debunks and puts them down. I have gay and lesbian friends, and I understand how hard it is for them to be themselves in front of the world. Sometimes, they just choose to act how the society expects them to. However, this steals their true identity for them, and some of us may understand how difficult it is to pretend as someone we are not.
Sometimes, I feel for them because they would wish they could have been “straight” so that they would not go through the hurtful discrimination. Nevertheless, although we cannot blame it on the gays and lesbians, we cannot also put the blame on other societies for having a very conservative kind of attitude about this issue. This is because traditional societies may have been exposed to this conservative living from the religions and spiritual beliefs that have been existent since time immemorial. In many parts of the world, gay Christian marriages are already being practiced (Dockins, 2008).
However, this practice puts gray areas in the current debate and discussion about gay and lesbian marriages in the Christian perspective. Considering the fact that Christian teachings only allow uniting two people of the opposite gender, where did the idea of Christian gay and lesbian marriage come from? These issues are some of the major things that make the homosexuals of our society today confused and frustrated. Not knowing where one stands in the society is quite a dilemma, and swallowing and absorbing cruel and hurting words from the very conservative societies is also a very difficult experience to have.
Hence, putting ourselves in the position of gays and lesbians may make us understand somehow how they feel in this homosexuals-rejecting world. Putting these things on hand, we can observe that, even though how happy and “gay” the homosexuals may look on the outside, they sure deal with hurtful discriminations most of the time. All the discriminating looks and rude, disrespect words surely place them in a downgraded position. These acts somehow make us forget that they are also humans who were born with a specific identity which they have to live with for the rest of their lives.
If I would have to give pieces of advice to homosexuals, it would include the following: (1) they must prove their worth to the world and always strive to show their best skills and talents because eventually, the society will value them for that; (2) the society must understand where they are coming from, but they also must understand where the conservatism of most societies is also coming from; and (3) they should not dwell on the discriminations put against them; rather, they should take them as inspirations to prove to the society that they are a worthy individual.
These pieces of advice may not lessen the true dilemma and issues that the gays and lesbians of today are experiencing. However, these may help them discover their true worth, and they may eventually look at themselves as worthy individuals ready to face the society. After knowing several gays and lesbians, I, as someone who previously cannot accept them, realized that they are worthy of acceptance, and that no one will respect them if they would not respect themselves first.
References
Cardwell, M. (2003). Psychology A2: the Complete Companion. Cheltenham, UK: Nelson Thornes Dockins, K. (2008, October 20). Gay Christian marriage perspective. Ezine Articles. Retrieved November 3, 2008 from http://ezinearticles. com/? Gay-Christian-Marriage-Perspective&id=1602126