I talk a lot about how I believe that loving a GLBT person is what changes many people's minds about equality and inclusion. It's no secret I think that way because that's what happened to me.
Recently, I discovered a blog by a woman named Carol Boltz. Carol was married for 30 years to Ray Boltz, a Christian musician and songwriter who sold over 4 million records in his career. He was greatly loved and respected in the evangelical Christian community...
And then he came out.
Carol's blog, My heart goes out..., talks about her journey from shocked spouse to ardent GLBT rights activist. Her journey is familiar to me, because it was my journey too---but I didn't have a very public profile in the evangelical world. Carol writes with grace, love, and humor about having to rethink everything about her life and her faith.
In my view, she's modeling what Christ asked us to do. Check her out.
4 comments:
Thanks for this, Doxy. It's also worth noting that the "coming out" of a married person as gay, is a difficult and painful journey for them, as well as the spouse left behind.
I think that as more kids are able to embrace who they are, this will happen less often. BUT it will still happen. Sexuality that isn't strictly binary and also we don't always have that self-knowledge at a young age.
Tragically, the pro-Prop8 forces in the new Federal Suit have decided to frame part of their argument on the fact of people discovering (in their words, "changing" ) their sexuality. As reported by LawDork, The most remarkable, and oddest, claim comes in the Proponents’ discussion of “immutability,” a portion of the examination into what level of scrutiny the court will use to examine whether Proposition 8 is valid. The Proponents state:
We will also develop evidence that homosexuality is not immutable by analyzing marriage and domestic partnership records from California. . . . From the domestic partnership records, we will compile a list of all the individuals in California who have entered a same-sex domestic partnership. We will then cross-reference these names with the marriage records to identify individuals were previously or subsequently married to a member of the opposite sex.
Asshats!
Maybe those of us who have been married to GLBTs should file a friend-of-the-court brief, and detail all the heartbreak we have endured because of legal discrimination against GLBTs...
I have no doubt that, if my ex had thought he would be loved and accepted by his family and our community of faith as a gay man, he would have lived an honest and happy life--with another man.
As it is, he lost his family (for a while) and he's completely abandoned faith. He and his partner of 18 years are planning to be married soon. The DC City Council recently voted to recognize legal marriages performed in other jurisdictions, but P. and M. are hoping that the Council will actually legalize marriages in the District this fall. Since they've lived there for ages, they'd like to be married there.
Doxy, I'm hereby seconding you to the Olson/Boies legal team for firecracker duty!
BP and I haven't discussed this yet, but she is likely to be a case in point, as she has been married twice in CA, once to a man and once to a woman.
Of course the Bad Guys don't say they are going to look at MARRIAGE records, and we were never DP'd, so may be not!
BTW, BP's Ex (aka her wusband) is also a very supportive straight ex-spouse. BP and your ex were both fortunate in the quality of their first spouses. :-)
I'm with IT, as usual. And I find the tone of the Blog a very nice and kind one ;=)
Love to you all!
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