Box Turtle Bulletin
News and commentary about the anti-gay lobby“Now you must raise your children up in a world where that union of man and box turtle is on the same legal footing as man and wife…”
News and commentary about the anti-gay lobbyMarch 5th, 2007
I’d like to thank everyone for your comments on my four questions I was quite surprised and gratified at how many of you took the time to answer the questions thoughtfully and honestly.
I posed those questions because the terms that I quoted were used quite heavily at Love Won Out. I knew how those terms were understood by those who attended that conference, but I wanted to get a sense of whether those same terms are understood the same way generally. The answers you provided seem to come from a pretty wide range of perspectives and backgrounds, but for the most part, they generally agree — although “homosexual” as a noun carries an awful lot of baggage on both sides for different reasons.
The thing I was trying to assess was whether the phrases they used, many of which are quite euphamistic, were deceptive or not. For the most part, they’re not — at least according to your responses. Whether these terms are complete or whether they reveal more than they conceal is another matter and subject to debate. But by themselves, and in the very limited context in which I presented them, it appears that your interpretations broadly match those of the participants at Love Won Out. But it’s the nuances — especially those surrounding the first one, “homosexual” that are key.
I’ll talk more about that in another post in a day or two. But you’ve helped give me some direction on where to go on it, and for that, many thanks.
And if you haven’t had a chance to comment or if you have more to say about it, please feel free do so.
Update: Something else I should add. The word “change”, for the most part, was understood more or less the same way by commenters here and many of those who attended Love Won Out — but with a twist that most non-Evangelicals miss. Surprised? I was too. I’ll have more on that next week.
Update and Clarification: I think I see a point of confusion in some of the comments. The confusion is my fault. I’m really only talking about how these terms were used at Love Won Out, and whether the terms conveyed by the speaker 1) match how that audience interpreted the term and 2) match how we would interpret the terms. I’m not talking about how they are used by Exodus or Focus on the Family elsewhere. Nor am I talking about how any other ex-gay groups use these terms.
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