B
blue_skies_1
Guest
Where I go to university (and I know, in most places really) there really are a lot of gay people. I think we are known for being particularly ‘gay friendly’. What this means in practice for me is that a lot of my interactions are with gay people.
One of my best female friends here (who isn’t from a religious background, but is a lovely person) has had one lesbian relationship and a couple of other ‘experiences’. She’s involved with the Gay/Bisexual group on campus, a lot of her friends are gay men. So she will mention stuff about them - let’s say ‘Tom’s got a new boyfriend. They seem really happy together’ or ‘Steve is thinking of breaking up with Matthew (his boyfriend who he lives with) at the end of the year, I wonder if he will or not, it would be sad’.
She knows I’m Catholic, knows that I go to Mass but let’s face it that doesn’t always mean much
. And, whilst I’ve not really questioned the teachings of the Church in the area of sexuality, I’ve had my struggles with following it in the past so my guess is she just assumes I’m ‘liberal’. She does know I’m very pro-life, we once had a rather heated discussion about that!
Honestly, the way that things like abortion and gay rights (e.g. adoption) are presented as civil rights issues and compassion issues, means that many of the nicest people, people that I care about and am drawn to friendships with, are particularly ‘pro gay’, including stuff like gay adoption which I just could never support. So it’s hard. I don’t belong with the ‘jock’ types who make the homophobic jokes (well I’m a girl anyway), and yet I don’t quite belong there either. I would like to have more Catholic friends but at the same time I don’t want to live in a ‘friendship ghetto’.
Honestly, I do feel uncomfortable when she says things like that, casual references to gay relationships, because I’m not sure whether to go out on a limb and say something. These things are so easily misunderstood that it could cost me the friendship. Maybe she’ll think I’m ‘cruel’, ignorant, or lump me in with certain more extreme Protestant groups who think gay people are just plain evil, that they choose it, it can be ‘cured’, that they should ‘go back into the closet’ etc. It can be pretty hard to differentiate the Catholic position from that & even if I did, it would still seem too strict. An argument I’ve had thrown at me before is ‘the Church would be condemning these people to a life of loneliness, everyone needs someone, I can’t believe God wants me to be alone’. Now I don’t buy that at all, but I honestly don’t have a CLUE what to say! You can guess how far a comment like ‘you can still live a happy life without a relationship, you can have friendships, you wouldn’t be alone’, that kind of thing, get me. Not that I’ve often even tried - I don’t want to be thought of as the weird, uptight extremist.
I know, I’m too worried about what people think but on the other hand there’s the need to be prudent about what we share and when. I just don’t know if I’m getting it right. My silence when I’m told about people’s gay relationships, my friendliness towards people who are gay, are naturally taken to mean agreement. And the truth is, I’m very fond of some of these people & I do not want to alienate them. Am I just being a hypocrite? I’m picking up on the gay thing here but the same goes for things like mentioning pre-marital sex (or ‘I’m thinking of moving in with my boyfriend’ type comments), drinking culture etc. It’s SO difficult to know how to respond. Please help!!!
One of my best female friends here (who isn’t from a religious background, but is a lovely person) has had one lesbian relationship and a couple of other ‘experiences’. She’s involved with the Gay/Bisexual group on campus, a lot of her friends are gay men. So she will mention stuff about them - let’s say ‘Tom’s got a new boyfriend. They seem really happy together’ or ‘Steve is thinking of breaking up with Matthew (his boyfriend who he lives with) at the end of the year, I wonder if he will or not, it would be sad’.
She knows I’m Catholic, knows that I go to Mass but let’s face it that doesn’t always mean much
. And, whilst I’ve not really questioned the teachings of the Church in the area of sexuality, I’ve had my struggles with following it in the past so my guess is she just assumes I’m ‘liberal’. She does know I’m very pro-life, we once had a rather heated discussion about that!Honestly, the way that things like abortion and gay rights (e.g. adoption) are presented as civil rights issues and compassion issues, means that many of the nicest people, people that I care about and am drawn to friendships with, are particularly ‘pro gay’, including stuff like gay adoption which I just could never support. So it’s hard. I don’t belong with the ‘jock’ types who make the homophobic jokes (well I’m a girl anyway), and yet I don’t quite belong there either. I would like to have more Catholic friends but at the same time I don’t want to live in a ‘friendship ghetto’.
Honestly, I do feel uncomfortable when she says things like that, casual references to gay relationships, because I’m not sure whether to go out on a limb and say something. These things are so easily misunderstood that it could cost me the friendship. Maybe she’ll think I’m ‘cruel’, ignorant, or lump me in with certain more extreme Protestant groups who think gay people are just plain evil, that they choose it, it can be ‘cured’, that they should ‘go back into the closet’ etc. It can be pretty hard to differentiate the Catholic position from that & even if I did, it would still seem too strict. An argument I’ve had thrown at me before is ‘the Church would be condemning these people to a life of loneliness, everyone needs someone, I can’t believe God wants me to be alone’. Now I don’t buy that at all, but I honestly don’t have a CLUE what to say! You can guess how far a comment like ‘you can still live a happy life without a relationship, you can have friendships, you wouldn’t be alone’, that kind of thing, get me. Not that I’ve often even tried - I don’t want to be thought of as the weird, uptight extremist.
I know, I’m too worried about what people think but on the other hand there’s the need to be prudent about what we share and when. I just don’t know if I’m getting it right. My silence when I’m told about people’s gay relationships, my friendliness towards people who are gay, are naturally taken to mean agreement. And the truth is, I’m very fond of some of these people & I do not want to alienate them. Am I just being a hypocrite? I’m picking up on the gay thing here but the same goes for things like mentioning pre-marital sex (or ‘I’m thinking of moving in with my boyfriend’ type comments), drinking culture etc. It’s SO difficult to know how to respond. Please help!!!
) so I will check back and reply after that. Thank for any thoughts anyone can give!