Funny enough Randy, I as a happy gay man look at his questions as being rather antagonistic, but for the fun of it, I thought I would answer some of them from a gay man's view as well since his questions are just as skewed against most gay men as they are towards you.
Your lipring friend asked "it must be hard to see a hot guy walk by"
Even as a gay man thats a strange question. Would if be any different if a hot women walked by for a straight guy? Gay men's lives are not all about sex contrary to what this young man may think. I see an attractive guy walk by, notice and go about my day. Should a hot guy stop time or something? What does that mean? It was a very shallow thing to say to you or anyone ele for that matter.
I also don't know any gay men that spend their time looking around a room trying to decide who's hot and whose not. In fact, I have never done that and never would. The hottest guy I ever notice in a room is the one I have been with for 8 years of my life. That is the only hot guy in the room.
Your young friends questions seem to paint a picture of gay men all being shallow and sex driven and that is just a mean stereotype that isn't based in reality.
Your responses were very good.
Susan H
· 2 years ago
God bless him really. I didn't sense a real hatred oozing out of him. Those are actually curious questions that many have and wondering if what you say and live is true. If he doesn't know Christ and the depth of life in Him, I hope someday he will.
Randy
· 2 years ago
Hi Joe, thanks for adding your opinion and encouragement.
Susan, yep, he wasn't very good at hating but I don't know that he was really curious... I do think he wanted to upset me. Even so, I hope he was pleasantly surprised when I wasn't.
Maureen
· 2 years ago
Randy, your response to him was great. Reading this as a heterosexual woman, I had the same thoughts as Joe: those are incredibly shallow questions to direct toward anyone and that he was being (ineptly)antagonistic. I think that Susan is being kind (as I believe Susan most always is, to her credit). I think he wanted to rattle you or make his own statement. If he was simply curious, it would have been more about the issue and less about you. But, after hearing your response to him and that he shook your hand, I hope he left with a lesson learned, that two opposing opinions don't have to be grounded in hate.
Randy
· 2 years ago
thanks Maureen. I agree with your ideas especially about Susan being kind.
Jeremiah
· 2 years ago
"Hate" speech - or rather the leftwing presumption of being able to competently and purposefully define it - has long baffled and angered me. Some forms of hate are appropriate and necessary.
For my part, I decided to end a friendship with someone who had known me for years but who insisted (after I recently came forward about being "ex-gay") on treating me the way Mr. Lip-ring treated you. It's not exactly hateful, but it's certainly not friendly. It's more like "amateur-spiteful".
If we were to grant Mr. Lip-ring's baiting assumptions, then the question of whether gays could openly serve in the military would be settled with a clear NO.
Randy
· 2 years ago
Hi Jeremiah. I agree with you that the Left seems to think they have the "in" on what hate speech should be defined as but I would like to know more about your thoughts on when hate is appropriate and necessary.
I am sorry to hear of your parting ways with your friend. I hope someday that will change and some level of civil disagreement, or your friend changing their mind would come about.
Glad to meet you.
Jeremiah
· 2 years ago
Hi, Randy. Glad to meet you, too.
Please forgive me if that comment seems reckless. Since committed Christian faith powerfully overcomes and transforms any hatred, I see now that it was a careless comment to make (especially, to make on a Christian site).
About 15 years ago, when I worked with radical, Marxist, gay and lesbian activists, they (we) took pains to understand our love of "the Revolution" by which we eagerly cultivated "working-class consciousness" - both among ourselves and among the public we were setting out to organize. Yet they (we) remained clear about the hatred that we cultivated towards our (perceived) enemies. On two occasions in particular I recall one career Marxist gay activist describing to me - once offhandedly, another time with great vehemence - how he wanted to kill our (perceived) enemies. To be sure, our better interactions were guided by much benevolence. But since such benevolence was not based on Christian conviction, since it was based on commitment to violent revolution, hatred always was wrapped up in that benevolence. Hatred was ever-present, even if it usually remained the background.
Since saying goodbye to all that, I have spent much time reflecting on what I had been doing and why during those years. Certain Christian writers, such as Fyodor Dostoevsky, Whittaker Chambers, and St. John of the Cross, have been influential. They have helped make it possible to acknowledge a kind of spiritual exhaustion that dogged me, even long after I'd parted ways with those Marxist radicals.
Yet I see now that I still think there is some value in holding onto hatred. For better or worse, this may be some anti-authoritarian but secular trait that's still in me. Thanks for the interesting and disarming question!
Randy
· 2 years ago
Hi Jeremiah. Thank you for elaborating. I didn't judge your statement as "reckless." I was just curious as to how your statement worked itself out.
You have explained and I appreciate that. I also am honored you have chosen to share some of your journey ... and what a journey it is!
I was scolded as a young kid when I used the word "hate" because I was taught that it was on the same level of wishing someone eternal damnation. I don't know that I have ever seen that in the Bible but as a result I have always tried to stay away from hate toward people and most principles. I can't bring myself to actually hate a person but principles... I can come close. Although I do absolutely hate migraines .
Usually if I am angry I am always trying to figure out if it is righteous or unrighteous. Don't know if I am splitting hairs or not but that is the framework I operate in.
Mindy
· 2 years ago
Randy, I've always been encouraged by your responses to those who stand in direct opposition to you or to what you believe. And I'm always reminded of it when I'm interacting with those same types of people in my own life. Thanks for your example.
Kinderling
· 2 years ago
Those hateful questions were directed to see if Randy had truely let go of his Identity as a "Homosexual"; or suppressed himself under the veneer of the Judao-Roman Virgin God worshipers. A fleeting temptation does not mean it has gone. When something has been blasted by reality - it does not exist - it has no life to rise to the occassion.
For if one claimed to be a "Black Person" it would be pertinent to ask how they saw people in the crowd; if the proportion of black and white faces was appropriate for them to not feel a rising sense of resentment.
The questions therefore for Randy were pertinient and the answer "not yet, I have found myself into another guise" given for the questioner who walked away.
Randy
· 2 years ago
... And the Redeemed One turned to the neo-Gnostic and said, "My ... don't your robes look Pharisaical?"
Kinderling
· 2 years ago
And when asked "who redeemed you Redeemed One" the hand waved to the Exulted One. When you can realise who you are, you do not need redeeming by anyone, but to be born afresh. Self-loathing means covering by another cloth. For surely I do not know you.
All Comments
Your lipring friend asked "it must be hard to see a hot guy walk by"
Even as a gay man thats a strange question. Would if be any different if a hot women walked by for a straight guy? Gay men's lives are not all about sex contrary to what this young man may think. I see an attractive guy walk by, notice and go about my day. Should a hot guy stop time or something? What does that mean? It was a very shallow thing to say to you or anyone ele for that matter.
I also don't know any gay men that spend their time looking around a room trying to decide who's hot and whose not. In fact, I have never done that and never would. The hottest guy I ever notice in a room is the one I have been with for 8 years of my life. That is the only hot guy in the room.
Your young friends questions seem to paint a picture of gay men all being shallow and sex driven and that is just a mean stereotype that isn't based in reality.
Your responses were very good.
Susan, yep, he wasn't very good at hating but I don't know that he was really curious... I do think he wanted to upset me. Even so, I hope he was pleasantly surprised when I wasn't.
For my part, I decided to end a friendship with someone who had known me for years but who insisted (after I recently came forward about being "ex-gay") on treating me the way Mr. Lip-ring treated you. It's not exactly hateful, but it's certainly not friendly. It's more like "amateur-spiteful".
If we were to grant Mr. Lip-ring's baiting assumptions, then the question of whether gays could openly serve in the military would be settled with a clear NO.
I am sorry to hear of your parting ways with your friend. I hope someday that will change and some level of civil disagreement, or your friend changing their mind would come about.
Glad to meet you.
Please forgive me if that comment seems reckless. Since committed Christian faith powerfully overcomes and transforms any hatred, I see now that it was a careless comment to make (especially, to make on a Christian site).
About 15 years ago, when I worked with radical, Marxist, gay and lesbian activists, they (we) took pains to understand our love of "the Revolution" by which we eagerly cultivated "working-class consciousness" - both among ourselves and among the public we were setting out to organize. Yet they (we) remained clear about the hatred that we cultivated towards our (perceived) enemies. On two occasions in particular I recall one career Marxist gay activist describing to me - once offhandedly, another time with great vehemence - how he wanted to kill our (perceived) enemies. To be sure, our better interactions were guided by much benevolence. But since such benevolence was not based on Christian conviction, since it was based on commitment to violent revolution, hatred always was wrapped up in that benevolence. Hatred was ever-present, even if it usually remained the background.
Since saying goodbye to all that, I have spent much time reflecting on what I had been doing and why during those years. Certain Christian writers, such as Fyodor Dostoevsky, Whittaker Chambers, and St. John of the Cross, have been influential. They have helped make it possible to acknowledge a kind of spiritual exhaustion that dogged me, even long after I'd parted ways with those Marxist radicals.
Yet I see now that I still think there is some value in holding onto hatred. For better or worse, this may be some anti-authoritarian but secular trait that's still in me. Thanks for the interesting and disarming question!
You have explained and I appreciate that. I also am honored you have chosen to share some of your journey ... and what a journey it is!
I was scolded as a young kid when I used the word "hate" because I was taught that it was on the same level of wishing someone eternal damnation. I don't know that I have ever seen that in the Bible but as a result I have always tried to stay away from hate toward people and most principles. I can't bring myself to actually hate a person but principles... I can come close. Although I do absolutely hate migraines .
Usually if I am angry I am always trying to figure out if it is righteous or unrighteous. Don't know if I am splitting hairs or not but that is the framework I operate in.
For if one claimed to be a "Black Person" it would be pertinent to ask how they saw people in the crowd; if the proportion of black and white faces was appropriate for them to not feel a rising sense of resentment.
The questions therefore for Randy were pertinient and the answer "not yet, I have found myself into another guise" given for the questioner who walked away.
When you can realise who you are, you do not need redeeming by anyone, but to be born afresh. Self-loathing means covering by another cloth. For surely I do not know you.