Deeply Held Gay Beliefs

If you Google the phrase "deeply held religious beliefs" (DHRB) you get an astounding 25,500 hits. Apparently, this combination of words is popular. If you Google the opposite of this phrase, something like "shallow religious beliefs", you get a paltry six (6) hits. Now Google the title of this article, "Deeply Held Gay Beliefs". Youīll come up with a big fat zero…or at least you would have until this article got uploaded onto the www. You also get zero hits if you sub the word homosexual for the word gay in the phrase.

OK. Letīs take a quick look now at a standard definition for the word "belief". I know you know, but bear with me. My beat-up paperback copy of The American Heritage Dictionary says that a belief is basically a "conviction or opinion". Synonyms listed are: feelings, ideas, notions, sentiments, etc. So going back to Google (and what would we do without it?) you find that substituting the word conviction in the phrase gives 842 hits and when you use the word opinion, you get a big fat ONE!

So where does all this word and phrase Googling lead? Well, obviously, while the words belief, conviction and opinion are near dictionary equivalents, their connotative use greatly impacts their meaning. You rarely hear people discuss their religious "opinions." Because, well….welll….religion goes "deeper" than opinion. Doesnīt it? And you rarely if ever hear gay people use the phrase "gay beliefs" – despite the reality that a strong case can be made, especially in the area of civil and marital rights, that the word "belief" is an appropriate description. More often, you run into the phrase combination "homosexual opinion" (about 6,200 Google hits minus the "anti-gay" combinations).

So obviously, at least in the minds of a goodly number of people, a belief is more substantial than an opinion. Go figure. Iīll also note here that a belief can be "deep seated" as well - (over 25,000 Google hits) but a "deep seated opinion" is more rare (243 Google hits). So when you really want to end a religious debate and take the high ground with you, all you have to do is bring out the big guns of a "deeply held belief" and people will automatically back off.

I am suggesting, by all this, that readers consider just how often the phrase "deeply held religious beliefs" is used in reality to cover up prejudice and bigotry. And just how frequently people dash behind their religious shield in an effort to justify all manner of crap. Admittedly, there are times and circumstances in which the phrase DHRB has positive meaning. But of late, and in the popular media in particular, it seems to have become an excuse for some not-so-laudable and even despicable human behavior. Consider,for example,the men who flew those airliners into the towers of the World Trade Center. They did so because of "deeply" held religious beliefs. Correct? Or consider -on a daily basis, somewhere in the world for religious reasons, someone blows their own body into bloody scattered pieces taking with them into death many unwilling souls. And donīt think for a minute that Christianity gets off the hook here either. Iīm simply am not going to go into that history and recount the litany of heinous things that have been done to humans as a result of deeply held Christian beliefs. Itīs also probably true that there is no identified major religion that earns a clean bill of health in this area. Most of the atrocities we humans commit upon one another result directly or indirectly from our various deeply held beliefs….most often religious ones.

We need to consider why it is that the word "belief" has become the nearly exclusive property of religion. Why donīt we hear from the "gay belief" crowd, even if itīs a small one? Is it that despite all the brouhaha about the gay agenda, the real agenda is being pushed in the hundreds of thousands of cell meetings that occur every Sunday morning in places called churches?

Whenever I encounter someone prominently flying the deeply held religious belief banner, I tend to want to run for cover because I suspect that the next salvo from them will be the unleashing of religious dogma and a demand that everyone live by the rules their god told them - in "His book" - had to be followed. Iīve noticed in discussing gay related issues that all debate and argument can sometimes grind to a halt when the "deeply held" religious card is pulled with the expectation, based on experience, that it will trump everything else and most certainly will land of top of any old silly gay beliefs.

On a website called "Get Religion.org" identified as a project of The Oxford Center for Religion and Public Life, there was a recent post detailing a story that some of you may already have read about. A civil servant (a marriage registrar) in England somewhere recently refused to perform same-sex marriages – a legal part of her job description. She claimed she was being effectively forced to choose between her religion and her job, describing how she was discriminated against for her religious beliefs. She did take her case to a tribunal and this week received a favorable decision. Quoting her after the decision, one newspaper reported her saying, "It is a victory for religious liberty, not just for myself but for others in a similar position to mine. Gay rights should not be used as an excuse to bully and harass people over their religious beliefs."

I found myself looking again at her quote (Itīs really pretty close to her bringing out the DHRB card is it not?).....and wondering how it would read with a bit of creative editing. What if we just reversed a few words here and there? Then it could read: "It is a victory for gay rights, not just for myself but for (all the) others in a similar position to mine. Religious beliefs should not be used as an excuse to bully and harass people over their gay rights". Now isnīt that an interesting twist or two?

In truth, while there are isolated instances of clashes between public servants and other employees regarding "gay rights", there are many more recorded instances of bullying and harassment by religion and religious organizations directed at homosexuals. Cases and situations where folks use their DHRBs as a reason to deny gay people full entrance into US citizenship. Situations in which DHRBs are used as a crutch to prop-up discrimination and prejudice of all sorts - not just gay related. Can you say Fred Phelps or anti-gay marriage amendments? Can you say Mathew Shepard? Do you remember slavery and illegal marriage for blacks and whites?

I can only speak for myself of course but, I am pretty sick and tired of hearing about peopleīs DHRB when this very often just translates into meaning deeply held but unfounded opinions predicated on little independent thinking - or even just a little bit of self-directed biblical/literature research. All too often, DHRBs are generated and then ingrained in lazy minds who are more comfortable being told what to believe than in making self-discoveries.

Finally: Doesnīt it seem that the cultural expectation is that itīs fine and dandy to talk about religious "freedom" but not such a good thing to discuss "gay freedom" unless you add or substitute the nefarious word "agenda" in the mix. And why is it that Googling the title of this article gets no hits? Are gay people incapable of having deeply held beliefs about their gayness? And just why is it that the idea of religious freedom should trump most everything else? Should it? Should the Jim Jones of the world have the freedom to lead people to mass suicide for the sake of unchallenged religious belief?

For those who have read some of my other articles, youīre probably already familiar with my quasi-Socratic approach to asking questions about things that often times go un-considered and often times have no specific answer. Still, I hope to stimulate some thought and even an occasional reconsideration of positions. In my thinking, too much of the deeply held stuff reflects ideas and beliefs that are ill formed, poorly and incompletely conceived, prejudicial and stubbornly immovable - no matter the evidence or source.

I believe that the quest for truth demands something far beyond the efforts of coach-potato warriors.

However, that said - it is a "deeply held belief" of mine that there are indeed absolute truths to be discovered in this Universe. But I donīt think for a moment they are to be found in ancient tribal manuscripts or in words issued from a church podium. Or even from the Popeīs balcony.

In regards to accumulating knowledge about the universe and the human species, we have much further to go than we have gone.