Finding healing and acceptance after same-sex love collides with religion

[cbayer]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/finding-healing-and-acceptance-after-same-sex-love-collides-with-religion/2014/10/17/873e82f6-54ae-11e4-892e-602188e70e9c_story.html



Anne Marie DeMent at a church near her family home in Silver Spring. (Astrid Riecken/For The Washington Post)

By Elizabeth Tenety October 17 at 6:14 PM

It’s hard to come out as gay.

It is even harder when your parents are profoundly committed conservative Catholics, your brother is a prominent priest who represents traditional church views on Fox News, and you were raised to believe that everything the church teaches is true.

So when Anne Marie DeMent first recognized that she was a lesbian, she “thought I was going to hell,” said the 30-year-old Bethesda, Md., lawyer.

Then her mother discovered letters the then-law school student had written to another woman, and DeMent began to worry about the punishment that would await her in this life.

more at link

[Warren Stupidity]

1. what a pathetic crapfest of conflicted bullshit and wishful thinking

So when Anne Marie DeMent first recognized that she was a lesbian, she “thought I was going to hell,” said the 30-year-old Bethesda, Md., lawyer.

Start there. Why would she think that? Oh right, because that is what her religion teaches.

“I blame my religion a lot for my family’s reaction,” she says.

Ruh-ro - good thing she isn't posting here, she would get an immediate spanking from the resident religion can do no wrong patrol.


The lord giveth:

DeMent’s family story echoes the challenges brought forth at this month’s Synod on the Family at the Vatican, an unusually candid and extensive examination of Catholic teaching on sexuality and family life that has given new hope to those who lobby for greater inclusion of gays and lesbians in the church.

The lord taketh away:

The language referring to same-sex relationships has since been watered down after some at the meeting criticized it as out of line with church teachings.

And in summary:

While Catholicism in some ways has caused the chasm in DeMent’s family, it also compels the members to heal.

Sure, pounding my head into this wall hurts, but when I stop it feels wonderful.

[rug]

2. I just think I'll pay more attention to what this woman has to say

But in time, DeMent came to find relative tranquility with Catholicism and her family, in large measure because of the spiritual training of her youth and a boost from Francis, the “Who am I to judge?” pope.

than to the fulminations of an embittered white male.

[theHandpuppet]

5. Ms DeMent is fortunate...

... even though she was shamed, made to suffer and is still rejected by some of her family and by the church. So if that's a story of what one might consider a fortunate survivor, there are a thousand victims like these whose journeys are a living nightmare:
http://www.rollingstone.com/culture/features/the-forsaken-a-rising-number-of-homeless-gay-teens-are-being-cast-out-by-religious-families-20140903?page=4

There can be no excuse for institutional bigotry. For many it's a matter of life & death and for me it's personal. I am an older lesbian who has witnessed the carnage this hatred has caused in the lives of too many friends.

[rug]

9. Why do you think this woman found "relative tranquility"?

[edgineered]

3. And the article says even more -

Now even members of this traditional Catholic family occasionally see their own side as being in the wrong on homosexuality.

When people try to remind Sharon Morris that the Catholic Church “loves the sinner but not the sin,” she says: “It goes through me, because I think, ‘You don’t know my daughter. Do you know your own sin?’ ”

Talking about gays as if “they’re a different creature,” she says “affects me differently now. . . . That’s why I consider this [experience] a great grace.”

Its amazing how people can suddenly change their views. A long march begins with a single step.

[cbayer]

4. It's pretty clear that people's perceptions can change drastically when the issue

becomes personal.

But no always. The mother of one my best friends died 2 years ago and never accepted that her daughter was a lesbian. It was a terrible tragedy, but that is how deep her bigotry was.

[edgineered]

6. Its sad to see that, moreso when the people are known to you

Forgiving (not in a religious sense) and trying to show someone after they're gone that you can see things from their perspective means a lot less than actually doing it.

Not saying the things that should be said to someone before they pass on comes back time and time again to remind us to be more thoughtful. Some people are thoughtful, some are not. Some people try and some do not.

We all have one thing in common though, none of us are perfect. Despite how much we pray or don't, no matter our beliefs or dis-beliefs. We can all be better, and the woman's mother realized this early and is a better person for it.

[cbayer]

7. It's a good reason to just be kind whenever you can.

Take people at face value. Don't judge them based on things that you might not agree with or see differently. Unless someone is trying to impose something on you, just live and let live.

I have to really struggle with this, but I do try.

We are indeed all imperfect.

[AtheistCrusader]

8. What religion was she?

Just curious.