I have these periods where I spend significant portions of
time trying to figure out what I want to be when I grow up.
Sure that sounds a little ridiculous
considering I’m 46 years old.
The thing
is, I’m trying to figure out who I want to be next and how do I get there.
Whenever I start thinking about this I
almost always start to think about religion and the role it’s played in my
life.
I honestly like religion, all
religions.
It doesn’t mean that I
believe in all religions but I enjoy learning about other people’s beliefs and
I enjoy discussing the commonalities between religions.
These thoughts prompt me to ask myself the same question I
have asked myself over the last 10 years.
Do I want to go back to school for PhD in Religious Studies? If I did, what would I do with it? I could also continue on with my degree in
Information Protection and Security, but do I really want to spend that kind of
effort in pursuing something I find interesting but I’m not passionate about?
This, in turn, leads to the next issue which continues to
evolve: my feelings about the Catholic Church.
I stopped attending mass quite some time ago, initially because I didn’t
feel any sense of community or belonging.
I felt as if it was my parents’ church.
Around the same time I was also coming to terms with my sexuality.
The short story is I’m a late bloomer.
I spent years dating men, and then not dating
anyone, because obviously something was wrong with me.
I just didn’t have a clue what that was.
Then I met L and it was as if a missing piece
to the puzzle finally settled into place.
It’s hard to explain but mentally, everything relaxed and my brain took
a deep breath and exhaled.
Here was
someone who loved me, who I was absolutely capable of loving in return.
Prior to the moment when I realized I loved L
(even if I couldn’t immediately admit it) I believed I was incapable of loving
someone; of feeling that kind of attraction, of feeling that kind of “rightness”.
What’s any of this have to do with my internal religious
debate? I still feel disconnected from
the church, because frankly it’s hard to feel connected to a church that places
so little value on women and their role in the church. Now that gets further complicated by the fact
that I’m in a same sex relationship and the church hierarchy seems to spend an
inordinate amount of time and resources fighting/attempting to overturn
marriage equality. Initially that
emotion manifested itself as disappointment.
Not that the efforts are surprising.
Now I find that I am angry. I’m
angry every time I read anything the church hierarchy and more recently
Archbishop Dolan says about women in the church or same-sex marriage.
“Archbishop
Dolan sees the church’s fight against abortion and same-sex marriage as a
struggle for “religious liberty” against a government and a culture that are
infringing on the church’s rights. The bishops have expressed increasing
exasperation as more states have legalized same-sex marriage, and the Justice
Department has refused to go to bat for the Defense of Marriage Act,
legislation that established the definition of marriage as between a man and a
woman.
The
bishops are struggling to reclaim the role they played in the 1980s and into
the ’90s as a nationally recognized voice on the moral dimension of public
policy issues like economic inequality, workers’ rights, immigration and
nuclear weapons proliferation. Since then, however, they have reordered their
priorities, with abortion and homosexuality eclipsing poverty and economic
injustice.”
I’m not going to claim that the
church is homophobic because they believe that marriage is between a man and a
woman. From a religious perspective they
believe this, ok I can accept that. From
my perspective Marriage Equality has nothing to do with religion and everything
to do with civil/human rights. In a
strictly non-romantic perspective it’s a contract between two parties and since
our government deems it fit to refer to that civil contract as a “marriage”
when it is between a man and a woman from an equality perspective it should be
referred to as a civil “marriage” for same sex couples as well. You can’t have a second class of definition
for the simple fact that it’s a second class. I’m not asking the church to
recognize my marriage within the confines of their religious beliefs. I am asking that they separate their
religious beliefs from politics. I am
asking them to perhaps direct their substantial funds to things that can better
society. I don’t know, maybe in these
tough economic times they’d like to help out the homeless, and the hungry with
some of the funds they are directing towards the campaigns to overturn same-sex
marriage in NY or block same-sex marriage in Maine. I’m asking that they focus a little more
attention on opening their doors for people who want to have a structured
relationship with God but can’t return to their churches because their church
spends an inordinate amount of time telling them that they are less than.
Really, does Bishop Dolan or any
other person out there really believe that I woke up one day and thought “wow,
wouldn’t it be fun to be in a homosexual.
I think I’ll choose this path
because my goodness how easy and fun it will be.” Yes, I could choose to be single, but I
believe that if God had intended on me being single and alone; if he had not
wanted me to experience the joy of being loved, truly loved; he would not have
introduced me to L.
So now I guess I have to focus
on being less angry with the church hierarchy and more focused on what I want
to do about my own spirituality and relationship with God.
Copyright © C.A. Bailey 2010 - 2011, All Rights Reserved.
