I have this love/hate relationship to the books of Robert Heinlein.  When he’s good he’s pure gold.  But there are times he makes me want to hit the roof.  And I suppose he’d be delighted to hear this.  He always said he wanted first to make a living as a writer, second to be entertaining, and third, to make you think.

Anyway…there’s this passage in Stranger In A Strange Land which I could forgive Heinlein anything for writing.  It’s the scene where Jubal Harshaw introduces a friend to Anne, who is a "fair witness".  I’m doing this from memory here, but as I recall it, Jubal and his friend are by the pool with some others, and the friend remarks that he’d never met a fair witness before and Jubal says of course you have, Anne is one.  Oh really, asks the friend.  And Jubal calls over the Anne "Anne, what color is that house on the hill over there?"  And Anne takes a look and immediately replies, "The side that’s facing me is white." 

That’s not only a beautiful illustration of what it means to tell the truth, but also how telling the truth has to work in the human context.  We are not gods.  We do not have the god’s eye view of reality.  So we have to be careful to understand, really understand, what it is that we know, and what it is that we don’t.

I’ve heard religious fundamentalists say that the most important question facing us is where will we spend eternity.  No.  There is another question that is more important then that one, more important then any other question you can ask.  Because it’s the question you have to know the answer to, before you can answer any other question:  What do I know, and how do I know it?

I suppose a fundamentalist would reply with some form of "The Bible says it, I believe it, that settles it."  But that’s still not answering the question.  How do we know that the Bible is an authoritative source?  How do we know what the Bible says?  At some point, we all have to make judgments, and those judgments are always personal.  It helps to make them honestly and sincerely.  But it also helps to do that with a little humility.  You only know the side that’s facing you.  And it goes without saying, that its helpful not to misrepresent the facts that we do know, to kind of…nudge people…in the right direction.  For their own good.

We should always behave such that what is true, can be verified to be so. -Jacob Bronowski.

But that’s been something of a problem for the ex-gay world, hasn’t it?

So I’m reading the back and forth between the ex-gay blogs and the survivor’s blogs in the wake of the Survivor’s Conference.  Seems the very word ‘Survivor’ is controversial.  One writer in the comments on Peterson’s blog says that using the term survivor is provocative.  As provocative as a million dollar billboard campaign designed to make people think that their homosexual neighbors’ most intimate sense of self is something akin to a blackboard that they could just wipe clean and redo for the pleasure of their heterosexual neighbors whenever they wanted to, if they weren’t so selfish, or so…trapped…in homosexuality…I’m not so sure.  How would a heterosexual be expected to feel upon laying eyes on a billboard that featured a handsome, happy gay man asking them to "Question Heterosexuality"?  Ah…but it’s not provocative to assert that there is no such thing as a homosexual…only people trapped in homosexuality. 

An anonymous ex-gay blogger asks if the ex-ex-gays are survivors, does that mean she’s a mortally wounded victim, or a corpse, or a zombie.  Well let me just answer as a gay man, who keeps hearing homophobic jackasses bellyaching about how we stole the word ‘gay’ away from decent society, that what other people call themselves doesn’t make you anything.  As a gay man who has heard himself labeled a symptom of social decay, if not a walking signpost of impending Armageddon, ever since he was a teenager, let me say that how other people live their lives doesn’t make You anything.  As a gay man who has walked among my fellow gay folk in many places and many scenes, from the sublime to the ridiculous, let me say that even when other people assert their identity with you, in ways you may find completely nonsensical if not utterly bewildering, That does not make you anything.  It’s your own experience in this life that makes you something.  It’s the fact that you lived it, or are still living it, that gives you the right to name it. 

But of course, this isn’t about what people call themselves, it’s about what they call others.  And I can appreciate how the ex-gay movement can take the use of the word ‘survivor’ in this context as an attack, considering that the religious right has made an art out of applying labels to themselves, as a way of back handedly pasting labels onto others.  So they say they’re pro-life, as a way of saying the other side is pro-death.  So they say they’re pro-family, as a way of saying the other side is anti-family.  So they say many thousands have found freedom from homosexuality, as a way of saying that homosexuality is a prison, or an addiction.  But that’s not what’s going on here, and if the word ‘survivor’ has any meaning, then just reading the stories on Beyond Ex-Gay is all that’s necessary to see how the word applies to these people. 

Of course, those stories are pretty damming, whether the survivors intend that or not.  Mortally wounded?  How about, Part Of The Problem.  A name on the knife in someone’s heart?  Someone you may have never even laid eyes on.  Perhaps some helpless teenager.  Delivered with love.  Yes, it would be nice if we could all just get along, regardless of what we call ourselves.  Yes, it would be wonderful, peaceful, happy tranquility if we could all just live our fucking lives, find our happiness in this life, make our way for ourselves in this world, reach for the dream within our hearts, to the best of our ability, to the best within us.  But that’s, let’s face it, just not in the cards.  Righteousness forbids it. 

The answer to how we all manage to get along despite our differences, is simple, in the way all impossible answers are simple.  You let leave us alone and let us live our lives, and we leave you alone and let you live yours.  But that is just not to be.  You are called to save us from ourselves, because you have the ultimate truth, and we are all merely trapped in sin, and never mind that you only see the side of the house that’s facing you.  Salvation has given you the God’s eye view.  So you’ll keep twisting that knife marked Salvation into people’s hearts and those of us trying to find and have and hold that someone to love in this poor, angry world, that intimate other, that soul mate, or as you might say, Trapped In Homosexuality will keep trying to get you The Fuck Off Our Backs, even if that means we have to be rude about it.  Because, you are taking what should be one of our life’s most perfect joys, and making it your offering to God and our hearts are not yours to offer.

I was content to ignore the ex-gay movement until the day I watched it try to drive a knife into the heart of a gay teenager who was perfectly content with who he was.   And then I took a closer look at what was being done to many other innocent hearts in the name of God, and even more obscenely…in the name of Love.  Most of them adults, some of them just kids.  I listened to one gay teenager talk about being forced through Love In Action against his will, and then how his own mother beat the living crap out of him because he was still as gay when he came out as when he went in, because the religious right had taught her to loath her own flesh and blood, and the ex-gay movement taught her that he didn’t have to be gay if he didn’t want to be, that his sexuality was an addiction, a false image, a renunciation of manhood, proof that she was not a good mother, and I don’t think the day will ever come when remembering his words and the look on his face as he told the story of the day his own mother started pounding her fists into him won’t make me want to put my fist through a wall.  It could make a stone cry.  But not the righteous.

So…I’m all about dialogue.  Considerate and transparent dialogue is a Good Thing.  But it’s a bit like dialogue between Israel and the Arab states surrounding it:  A prerequisite to talks is that you recognize my right to exist.  And see…that’s the problem.  Because there is just no way I can ask you to do that, ask you to get off our backs, ask you let us live in our communities, in our country, as full and equal citizens, no way I can even suggest it, that you will not hear me demanding of you that you renounce your faith.  We have to bleed, so you can be righteous.

So…maybe instead of calling ourselves gay, or ex-ex-gay, we all should just cut to the bottom line, and call ourselves Scapegoats.