Which begs the question: Is shame something no one should feel, ever? Or are there some reasons why it is legitimate to feel shame, and what are those? Why would “being gay” not qualify as a legitimate reason?
Even funnier that you responded the way you did.
When a society generally holds that your sexuality is something to be ashamed of, or worse that it condemns you either in this world or some afterlife, the message that you should in fact be proud is entirely appropriate. “Pride” of this reactive sort would only be bigotry and wrong if there was an implication of superiority over some other sexuality- such an implication is not present in the LGBT pride concept and it is not present in Cook’s statement. All of my LGBT friends don’t feel superior they just want the equal right to marry who they love, man or woman.
Homosexual behavior is a grievous sin. There is actually nothing to be proud about .
Are you ashamed to be straight–assuming you **are **straight?
We may say “You should be ashamed of yourself”, but we should not, since it is judging without knowledge of a person. Shame is something a person feels about himself/herself. There may be legitimate reasons why people feel shame. “Being gay” is not a legitimate reason to feel shame since one does not choose one’s sexual orientation.
But I don’t think all sexual inclinations or orientations are things to be shameless about. I don’t have to name the examples, they are obvious so I will spare that.
And precisely because it is not chosen, pride does not fit, either!
I would be if I was engaging in sinful sexual behavior.
The inclinations or orientations are not sins and are nothing to be shameful of. Whether you act upon them is another issue.
There are many, countless gay people who never engage in sinful, sexual behavior, and many, countless straight people who do. Sexual orientation says nothing about one’s state of sin. One can and should be confident in themselves, fully and wholly, for all their immutable characteristics. And certainly it is a good thing when someone shows self-acceptance in public of their immutable characteristics, such as their gender, sexual orientation, or race, in order to combat the hatred and bigotry espoused by those who demand nothing but self-shaming and self-hatred of oneself.
I think another poster gave the examples of being “proud” of your heritage or good looks. You could be proud of many things that are not “chosen”, like being proud of a God-given talent, like the ability to sing or paint. I just don’t think the use of the word proud is all that unusual.
But what you or I or Tim Cook think are “sinful” may be different. And anyway, it is not for us to point a finger of shame at someone else.
What I"think" is sinful is Irrelevant. I have found that it is best to adhere to the teachings of the One Holy Catholic Curch and not allow oneself to be sucked into whatever the mores of the current culture are. Mr. Cook decided to make his sexual preferences public. Furthermore he proclaimed that his sexual behavior something to be proud of. Public proclamations affirming simple behavior need to be responded to… If Mr. Cook didn’t want to have this discussion he should’ve kept his sexual desires to himself.
Where did Mr. Cook proclaim that he was celibate? Why would a celibate homosexual feel the need to proclaim his disordered desires and why would he be proud of it ?
Except it is not clear that acceptance of gender AND sexual orientation in this case are consistent. It seems to me that if gender is, as you say, an “immutable characteristic,” (and I would not dispute that, in most cases) then, to be immutable, sexual orientation would follow from one’s gender. Otherwise, what we have is a refusal or inability to accept one’s gender in order to promote the value or “pride” one puts in one’s “orientation,” which does not appear so immutable after all.
There is nothing immutable about homosexual orientation, I know I had it.