the exhilarating adventure of changing your mind

The blogger Jeremy Hooper has posted one of the most fascinating documents I’ve ever had the pleasure of reading, through all my reading related to the collision of gay rights activism and conservative Christian activism. A man changed his mind. Wow. It does happen, people. The man is named Louis Marinelli, and for a while he had a very close relationship with the organization NOM, which (in spite of its acronym) is not about the ravenous consumption of yummy food but instead is attempting to agitate and lobby against the institutionalization of same-sex marriage. Marinelli went from being an enthusiastic supporter to a repentant sinner asking for grace. Not to misrepresent things: the man is not a Christian. (More fascinating still, he is not exactly a supporter of the set of sexual choices often called “homosexuality.”) This is not a man who has switched camps. He just recognizes that there is a truth external to our biases and leanings and sometimes a day of reckoning comes when you have to adjust your point of view in accordance with that truth. We who profess faith should all have such a spiritual experience!

Hooper emailed him, asking: “On record, I’d ask you to go through the list of comments you have written/ Tweeted/ blogged/ Facebooked and repudiate any/all that you now see were objectionable.” Marinelli’s response is below.

Thinking about transsexuality

Back in April, I read a piece from the McSweeney's periodical, The Believer, called “Transmissions from Camp Trans,” by Michelle Tea.  The reader may already be familiar with situations where men-stay-out spaces don't know what to do with trans women.  This is one of them.

Struggling with Homosexuality

This started with a posting in the “Christian Citizen” forum at my church’s old website, in the midst of a discussion on same-sex unions. The writer, whose tag was Isaiah56, was criticizing those of us who had been discussing the issue for revealing an ignorance about (amounting to hostility towards) queerness:

….there are people steeped in conservative Christian culture who are willing to acquaint themselves with both these Biblical issues and “gay/lesbian issues,” and your church should do the same. (Until you do, you should clearly state every week in your church bulletin that you do not accept gays and lesbians as members, so that gay Christians and those who respect and support them can be warned to go elsewhere.) [Isaiah56]

Of course, I had to noodle on that one for a while.