Focus 580; STOPPING VIOLENCE AGAINST SEXUAL & GENDER MINORITIES

In this part of focus 580 will be talking with the Reverend Mel White for something like 30 years. He served the seven Jellicoe Christian community in this country a number of ways as a pastor as a bestselling author a prize winning filmmaker and also as ghost writer to some of its most powerful leaders his clients for ghost writing included Billy Graham Jerry Falwell Ollie North Pat Robertson. But that relationship changed rather fundamentally about six or seven years ago in 1903. He was installed as dean of the cathedral of hope Metropolitan Community Church in Dallas Texas which is the nation's largest gay and lesbian congregation. At about that time very publicly he came out and revealed that he was gay. He published an autobiography in 1904 and he and his story got a lot of attention at that time in the national media. He went on to co-found a group an organization called Soulforce. Which is interested in applying some of the principles of nonviolence that come from Gandhi and Martin Luther King to

the issue of seeking justice for the country's lesbian gay bisexual transgendered individuals and he is here visiting the campus of the University of Illinois to talk about stopping violence against sexual gender minorities. That's part of the Friday for our series the series of noontime talks that happen at the university why 1001 south right down on the campus it's sponsored jointly by the Illinois disciples foundation the McKinley foundation the Wesley Foundation and the university. And the series has been going on there for a long long time there's a series of talks in the spring the fall organized around a particular topic. And over the years we've had a lot of the speakers here on the show to bring them to a wider audience. To all those people who couldn't go of course if you're interested in hearing his talk Anyone's welcome it's free and open to the public and he'll be talking a little bit past noon at the university why. But we're pleased also to have him here and we would be happy to have whatever questions you have on comments. All we ask of callers is that people are brief and we ask that so we can accommodate

as many different folks as we can and keep things moving along to remember you're sharing the space with the other callers be generous with them as we are with you. The number here in Champaign Urbana 3 3 3 9 4 5 5. We also have a toll free line good anywhere that you can hear us and that is 800 to 2 2 9 4 5 5 3 3 3 WRAL and toll free 800 2 2 2 W while. Well thank you very much. You're welcome for being here. How just says a foolish question I suppose just how difficult was this. The split the break between you and the other folks that you had been working with. For such a long time. I grew up in a wonderful Evansville ical family where it was assumed that homosexuality was both a sickness and a sin. So naturally I assumed that as well. So I spent 35 years in therapy. Spiritual therapy psychological and psychiatric therapy trying to get over this longing for same sex intimacy and affiliation.

So when I finally realized after 35 years of therapy psychoanalysis prayer fasting exorcism electric shock. After all those years of struggling I realized that either I would have to die because I didn't want to carry this burden in longer or I would have to live as a gay man except my sexual orientation is a gift from God and live it with integrity. So all the time I was working for people like Billy Graham and others I thought they were right about homosexuality and I was in the closet I wasn't practicing. I had a wife and family. Kids are growing. I love them and I love my wife but I had never felt any kind of sexual attraction to her and that makes it very difficult for a marriage so when I did come out and she had she finally said to me after I tried to kill myself when we got up out of the emergency ward and I was sewn up and the stitches on my wrists were stopped bleeding she said you know Mel you're a gay man and you've tried for 35 years not to be I think you better

accept who you are and I give you that gift of freedom just remember you have a family who loves you. So I moved just down the hill and took care of my kids we jointly parroted them until they were out of high school and college and we're now very close as a family. I've been together with my partner Gary Nixon for 16 years. Coming out was very complex but to the family it was a loving kind of process with hard times and wonderful times with my Christian colleagues and former employers. It was much more complex even though they knew unlike me because of the standards that their church is upheld they couldn't support me in this. And so they disappeared most of them into the woodwork. And that's the last I saw most of them. How is it as a. Christian how do you deal with those parts of Scripture that are read as a condemnation of homosexuality. Well I spent 35 years worrying about those six verses

thinking that if I accepted my sexual orientation is a gift from God that I would lose myself and lose my family and lose my career and lose my life and be hated by everyone so those passages are very near to my heart. I went to theological school and went to seminary got a doctor in religion studied Hebrew and Greek so I could really understand those passages the closer I got to understanding them the more I realize that the biblical authors knew nothing of sexual orientation as we understand it today no more than they knew about nuclear energy or deep freeze and they assumed that everyone was created heterosexual. That anything that was different from that was sinful. And so when they say in Leviticus 20 a man who sleeps with another man is an abomination and should be killed. It's in the context of a child who sass as his parent is an abomination and should be killed or a man who sleeps with his wife when she is menstruating is an abomination and should be killed. These texts have to be seen in their

historic and linguistic contexts and we could spend all this program talking about Romans 1 or Leviticus 20. But I have to tell you. Once a person knows in his or her heart. That as the American Medical Association American Psychological Association American Psychiatric Association say it's as natural to be gay as it is to be left handed that the church just hasn't understood this. Once you understand that the American Medical Association when it says trying to change a person's sexual orientation is someone who is guilty of medical malpractise once you see that science and history and personal experience has taught me that I can be a gay man and a loving gay committed relationship and serve my church and serve my country. Once you know who you are. And once you accept that God loves you God created you as you are and God wants you to accept what you are and live it with integrity then those verses take on another whole context now. I don't talk about those verses

except to gay people and lesbian people who have been victims of those verses. Because people don't really want to talk about them. They don't really want to study them. They just want to use them to support their notion that homosexuality is a sin. Homosexuals can be sinners. I know I am but not because of my sexual orientation. So you know we can talk about each of the individual passages or we can get over them to some of the important things like what about all the passages on love that Jesus talked about what about all the outcasts that he said open wide the doors in the church now it's closing the doors to the outcasts What about the biblical passages about doing justice and loving mercy so far. So for me the really important thing is to not spend a lot of time arguing about Romans 1. But to look Jesus in the eye and realize he didn't say anything about it neither did any of the gospel writers neither did any of the Old Testament prophets. So it could have been too important to them. Well let me ask it was sort of a little bit of a different question because it it seems to

me that there are a lot of people who are. Uncomfortable with the idea of homosexuality and that it's possible that some people might indeed if For them it might be a moral issue and they might say yes I think homosexuality is a sin but I think and I may be wrong that that for most people it's why they're uncomfortable with it is. Is rather is not very well defined. I don't know that they would really know how many would say well it's because it's a sin but that's something that that they just are it's something that they're profoundly uncomfortable with in a way that they almost can't tell you why. How does how does one know if you're interested in changing people's minds or at least getting them to reconsider what they think. How how does one approach that. That sort of vague vague discomfort that people have with

the whole idea. We have a lot of evidence that says the only way people's minds are changed about homosexuality is to know homosexual. To know when up close and personal. That the data and that is not. Whether it's biblical data or the argument about nature or nurture about whether it's genetic or post genetic or both those arguments. Don't do anything to change people's minds they just do more to make things uneasy between us. What changes peoples minds. Is knowing a gay man or lesbian woman bisexual or transgender person knowing them and loving them. That's why when Pat Robertson gets a gay grandchild or a lesbian grandchild of Jerry Falwell does he's going to be hard put to know with what to do with all this rhetoric that he uses against us. So so when somebody isn't easy about me we were on LARRY KING LIVE the other day and somebody called and said What do you guys do in bed.

That's. I think that's one of the things that's at the heart of the an ease they can't picture and heterosexual finds it hard to picture what a gay person a lesbian person does and bad and I he said Larry King said That's none of your business and he hung up on a minute said no that's his business let's talk about it he said this is a network program. Well you better be careful I said no not really. Gary and I have been in the same bed for 16 years. We're like everybody else we sleep in bed. And Larry King said something that I think is classic answer your question he said once they discover yours boring as we are it's all over. And. I think that the unknowing. Like what do they do in bed. Do they hold hands. Do they sit across tables that are candle lit. Do they walk along the beach together do they write love letters to each other. Are they just like us. Yes. They're just like you. And in that once you can kind of rep your mind around that it's not easy for me to picture heterosexual intercourse because it's just not a part of my heart.

And I'm 60. But for me get what Gary and I do in bed even though it's so seldom that I'm 60 I'm tired. The fact is we cuddle in bed and we have long dinners together and we see each other at the airport coming home and we are intimate and loving and caring and together. And that's what makes us happy. And people should say well if that makes Mel and Gary happy. And if they live responsible loving lives and if they're spending most of the time telling people that God loves them. Why do we keep fighting Mel and Gary. Why can't we simply say we don't understand Mel and Gary but we see by their lives that they're OK. Why isn't that enough. I need to know why people feel like they have to change me. After 60 years as though I had never thought about the questions they asked. We are talking this morning with Reverend Mel White. He is a gay activist and is the co-founder with his partner of Soul Force which is an organization an effort a movement to apply the

nonviolent principles that were used by men like Gandhi and Martin Luther King to the issue of sexual justice for for gender minorities in this country. Men and lesbian women. He's here to speak as part of the Friday forum on this very topic down on the campus a little bit past noon so if you're in and around Champaign-Urbana you can go and hear from him. And questions are welcome 3 3 3 W I L L toll free 800 2 2 2 0 W while we do have a caller in Charleston. Lie Number four now oh yes. Hello good program. David I have just two comments. We have a gay friend related to us that he was most uncomfortable by the fact that he could do public what other. Heterosexual couples do not work to hold hands or to demonstrate an affection

for a partner. And we empathize with that and the other comment here is overall comment about your homosexuality if this was said to him. Yes sexuality is it's not natural. And of course comment was if it weren't natural it couldn't be done. So those are my comments and I appreciate the program addressing the subject. I'll ring off. Thank All right thank you for the go it was a great code when they come in but when I get off an airplane and Gary standing in the airport and I've been going away for a week or two weeks or overseas I want to hug in. And if I did there would be people literally. Who would put their finger in their mouth and gag which that's happened to us. They would throw beer bottles at us which has happened as all kinds of

stuff that makes us a very uneasy world for gay people to come out and see if we don't come out. Then people don't know how many of us there are we are your neighbors you know where your pastors and your priests and rabbis we play the organs that your churches and teach your kids. I mean we are everywhere and yet we don't look like we're everywhere because we're afraid to be out. So it's it's hard I would love to walk down the beach with Gary and hold his hand but I know what the consequences would be they could be dangerous as well as demeaning. I mentioned Soulforce and we could talk some more about what soul force is so force is just the word that Gandhi used to describe his brand of militant nonviolent resistance to injustice. It was called such a Gras in Hindi and meant truth force but he always ended up talking about soul force because once you really start applying truth in your life and insisting that your life be true. True to itself true to its maker that your own soul is a noble

old and renewed and empowered. So truth for us was for Gandhi Soulforce And so when we realized that religion was at the heart a misunderstanding about gays and lesbians today that religious leaders are the primary sources of toxic rhetoric against us. We realize that we had to stand up against this we couldn't simply be acquiescent to the to the terrible rhetoric and so we form disorganization is just simply a network of folks across the country straight and gay alike who want desperately to bring a peaceful loving attitude to this discussion. And right now it's dividing churches it's dividing homes it's dividing families. There's some peacemaking that desperately needs to be done and so for simply trying to do that you get you in all of your materials and I know and the way you like to to go about doing things. Mention both Gandhi and Dr. King. And

I think that there are some certainly some people who make the argument that gay rights is a civil rights issue. And that we ought to approach it that way and other people reject the parallel. They say that being gay is not like being black. How do you think about them. Well being black and being gay is very different. But when you think about the gay black people then you've got a double jeopardy going. So it's not the same it's very different. A gay black man or black man might be loved by his family his Christian family because he's black room by his neighbors once they find out he is gay he's on another list altogether. What would Dr. James Lawson who taught Dr. King about nonviolence James Lawson who taught the freedom writers who taught the kids who sat in at the cafeteria in the lunch counters James Lawson the black man that is really one of the of the founders of the 50s and 60s revolution said to me the other day it was harder to be gay for you guys

and it was hard for us to be black in the 50s and 60s and say wait a minute let's not start comparing suffering no he says I want to tell you why. He said when we were in the 50s and 60s we black we African-Americans had our families and had our churches on our side. Gay people often don't have their families or their churches. And that means you have nowhere to go for comfort or for strength nowhere to go for a new networking. And I think he's right that one of the major differences is that gay people are often rejected by very people who need to love them the most. That said we have another caller this is Clinton Indiana and it's Lie Number Four. Hello. Oh yes. I had a friend of mine. I don't know what happened to I'm just back from the 60s. But he knew what he was in the Navy. He said he didn't you first discovered that he was gay.

Yeah. Well he was just a real nice guy. They owned a restaurant a real exclusive type restaurant. Church will and all right I accepted them. You know it didn't bother me you know alone she DID YOU KNOW WHAT IT IS Loser me. But one not. He was an interior decorator and I want to Goggle with him. And I used to pick him up some I tell you in marble and whatever have you and he was good at his trade and he stopped at his friend's ouse. And if we get up in this apartment and there is like hopscotch during the you know or musical chairs. And finally I just left and went down a car. That's the only thing I resent about that I told him I don't care you know how you feel but he know how I felt. But I just felt you know he should of tried to force that on me.

Absolutely you are a nobody should force sexual intimacy on anyone and we really agree with you that would be very unfortunate but we have our trouble makers are people who aren't mature too and I'm sorry that happened to you. Well he was mature. You know he doesn't. He was he's a he's a pretty smart fellow. You know I just he had the hots for me for some reason seem large. I didn't see that as a compliment. Yeah. Oh I think you know I still do a good for you. OK thanks for the call. I'm dying to know what the hopscotch was. I'm not sure I want to know. It's so interesting when straight people say you know that gay guy had a crush on me. I found that really complimentary but I had to tell him you know I'm straight. And then he said What a waste and went away. Just put it the opposite way you know when I when a wonderful straight woman has a crush on the gay man and the gay man is to say you know I like you a lot but that's

not the way my heart beats. It's complex but we got to see that as very human and set standards that are high but at the same time forgive people when you have a crush man you have a grudge. Why then I don't want to take anything away from the caller's experience or have you know cast any doubt on the way he said it was the way that it was. But why is it that we seem to have this idea that people who are gay are somehow more sexually aggressive than people who are straight. I don't know. There are no data to prove that there are no data the city with even were more promiscuous. There has been some terrible promiscuity in heterosexual and homosexual lives and this AIDS epidemic has pointed out to the gay community how dangerous promiscuity meaning sex apart from any kind of commitment to responsible sexual acts outside of a loving relationship.

But right now the venereal disease rates are proliferating in the heterosexual community and it says that AIDS is in danger again of reaching that community too I just I wish we would all get a hold of ourselves. Gandhi and King both talk about the controlling passions as a part of doing justice and that it's not easy. I mean especially when you've been promiscuous I want to say to young gay guys or to young straight guys you know when you've had sex a lot of different times a lot of different people and you get that excitement going to going to become addicted to that kind of excitement and I don't care what people say it's true. You do and when you do settle in then it's hard to get over that addiction. And therefore these people are saying wait until marriage and wait till he's old things their body else is laughing because in no way may they have something very important here in the in Dallas that are big a church 10000 congregants. I was stunned because I came from Los Angeles to be the dean of that cathedral I found all these Texas boys in their starched jeans in their starched ironed shirts refusing to have sex until they could have a wedding ceremony in the church.

And that was grown up gay men living by the same standard that I had lived under as a young kid growing up in an Evansville local home. I think we had a lot more discussion. About Sex hetero sex and homosex before we start really dividing over this issue we just kept it in the closet too long. How important would it be to you think for gay couples to be able to get married and do that in a in a public way have a ceremony acknowledging this and then have that union be recognized the way that we would recognize that if this was heterosexual couple. Well there's there's two really important arguments one against marriage saying that heterosexual marriage doesn't work for heterosexuals that getting married hasn't helped them much and that's why one out of two marriages ends in divorce that's why there's all this promiscuity in the heterosexual world. But on the other hand a lot of us say that commitment ceremony before your neighbors and before your community and before God in yourself is really important. That's

the right of marriage. And so we do that now. We marry gay couples and lesbian couples all the time all across the country and they have as good a rate by the way as when I was marrying heterosexual couples as a pastor. However the rights of marriage is a different thing are a different thing there's 1047 rights and protections that go automatically with heterosexual marriage that Gary and I can't have. And so when they say we're looking for special rights when we want marriage we know looking for special rights at all. We're looking for those basic rights that are just so important to get to a couple who's trying to get a long life for example of Gary dies I can't even determine his burial place his parents can do that. We have so many cases of couples that have been together 30 40 years. And when one dies the parents or the nearest relative of the deceased comes in and takes everything because only one person's name can be on the property or one person's name can be on the car. So so we're saying we need marriage. I don't care what you call it. But those rights and protections that go with heterosexual

marriage are something we really need to support and sustain our own relationship. We had before we got going here we talked a bit about how you're going to be. Going to. A meeting that upcoming in National Conference of Catholic Bishops later this month. See it the heart of so much misunderstanding about a gay lesbian bisexual transgender people is religious language. Baptists say we're sick and need to be cured and we're sinful and need to be saved. Methodists say were irreconcilable with Christian teaching. Most of the mainline denominations say we're not worthy of being ordained or being married. The Roman Catholics say that our orientation is objectively disordered and that our acts of loving intimacy are intrinsically evil. The pope has said this year gay people should not be allowed to be married to adopt to co-parent to teach to coach or to serve in the military. They don't even let dignity Catholic that's the

solidarity gay Catholics group in the main in America. The pope has even said they can't meet on church property or dignity Catholics can't even be served the mass by a priest. That kind of. Rhetoric that kind of teaching leads parents to discard their children leads gay bashers to harass and to hound a discriminated against even in even kill gay people. So we're standing with the National Conference of Catholic Bishops we've been writing to Bishop friends of the president of all the 287 bishops in American cardinals and we're saying we're coming to your meeting in Washington DC November 13 and 14 and by the way coming with us are William Sloane Coffin in the room Gandhi and James Lawson and some of the great leaders from the civil rights movement of the 50s and 60s to say to you re-examine your positions on these papers because they lead to suffering and death. I need to just read a quote from a letter of a murderer who killed gay people. That Williams Brothers in Shasta County killed their employers Gary Mattson and Winfield

a longtime gay couple they killed him in their sleep. And in a jail interview this man Matthew Williams the killer of these two gay men said this when his mother said Why did you kill those gay guys. And he said and this was recorded. I had to obey God's law rather than man's law. I didn't want to do this I felt I was supposed to I have followed a higher law. I see a lot of parallels between this and a lot of other incidences in the Old Testament he said about killing a man they threw our savior in jail. Our forefathers have been in prison a lot prophets Christ my brother and I are incarcerated for our work in cleansing a sick society. I just plan to defend myself from the Scriptures. We believe that that's the smoking gun that in fact this kind of rhetoric from Protestant and Catholic Christianity trickles down and causes suffering and discrimination and death. And therefore we will be standing in front we've all adopted a bishop. We joke and say for 10 bucks you can adopt a cardinal and we're

writing to these bishops individually. And two hundred eighty seven of us plus all our associates will be standing with the name of our bishop in hand saying stop spiritual violence as they assemble for their mass in the largest Catholic Church in the Americas. And we're asking only that they let dignity Catholics in and serve them the Eucharist. That's all we're asking and by the way their slogan for the Jubilee Year is open wide the doors. And beneath that poster they're going to have to tell us either to come in which would be breaking their own law or stay out which won't even make sense to people looking on. And if they don't let us in we're going to jail and we're going to stay in jail until they meet with us and seriously consider the damage they're doing. One can imagine that they would know what they might do would be to respond to your concerns on one level by saying Of course we condemn violence against gay men and lesbian women. We would never ever say that. Not for the not the slightest shred of approval for an act

like that. And but then at the same time hold to the other things that they would say. Basically saying that they think that homosexuality is a sin. Oh the family they are against violence I think generally against violence. I don't think they realize how much they contribute to violence while they're saying that. When when Jerry Falwell says that gay men and women are a threat to American values that they use and recruit and molest children that they have earthquakes in California because there are so many gays in San Francisco in the you know this and this and this and this. The Catholic Church saying that we're intrinsically evil and that we shouldn't do all these things implies the very same thing so I don't see the pope as being very different from Jerry Falwell or the ayatollah in terms of the way they handstand towards gay people. But a wonderful Rabbi Rabbi Abraham Heschel said Words have power. Speech does not fade. What starts as a sound ends in a deed. And if you're sitting in that church pew hearing week after week after week after week that gay people threaten our

children that they shouldn't coach because they will start children assumed they shouldn't serve in the military because they will molest their buddies even though the data shows totally different data on that that they shouldn't be this and they shouldn't do that and they can't do this and they're sick and they're sinful. You hear that enough and you go out and bash a gay person you feel like you're doing God a service. So you can't say we love the sinner but hate the sin. You have to love us as we are or you don't love us at all. We are a little bit past the midpoint here perhaps I should introduce our guest again for anyone who's tuned in the last little bit here we're speaking with Reverend Mel White he is a gay activist and he is co-founder of this organization we mentioned called Soulforce which is interested in applying classic nonviolence principles advocated by Gandhi and Martin Luther King toward the issue of justice for sexual gender minorities Questions Comments welcome certainly 3 3 3 W while toll free 800 1:58. While

I mentioned the beginning of the program that you have had this long association with the Evan Jellicoe Christian community and with people like Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson. And that at the time that you came out in a very public way that your story got a lot of attention and I can imagine some people saying well this is just another example of the liberal media seizing on an opportunity to poke the eye and put the finger in the eye of the conservatives of this country or the religious right or so forth and I wonder what you think about the kind of coverage that you in your story got and whether you thought that the they got the right they got the story right they got the issues right or that they there were that media were attracted to the story primarily because it was about conflict and also because it was about conflict the political right in this country without the media right now I don't think these issues would

be as far along as they are. I think 60 Minutes and Larry King and all the programs that we were on were really trying to get at the heart of this issue. I happen to be larger than life because I'm a relationship with Dr. Graham and all these folks and so they use me as a larger life symbol but that's kind of the media. My son is now a writer on Dawson's Creek which is a popular kids program and he just wrote a program about undifferentiated genitalia for a new program called Freaks and Geeks. He's struggling like mad to make these issues come to life for people in a loving way. And so for me the media has not been one sided the liberal state of the media is taking a terrible beating from a lot of my Aboriginal friends for being only on the liberal side only on the liberal side. But for me I've seen I've been beaten down by the media as much as I've been elevated by it. I've had times of really crucifixion on the media as well as times of being crowned King of the Emperor you know. And at this point I don't know I think the media is pretty well right.

I hate going on radio or television anymore because there's so many people who just want to say Have you read Romans 1. Have you read Leviticus 20. It was on the program the other day with the Presbyterian minister has it have you ever read Liberty's 20 as ideas or I've read it what does it mean to you when he says you should be killed. And you know it's actually came right out of Caesar Hausen watt radio station in Seattle. President Mister and I said that's what it says that Leviticus text says a man who sleeps with another man is an abomination and should be executed. That's what it means. King James softened a little bit said by saying it worthy of death. When you study Hebrew it's should be executed. So I said Well who should do the killing your church folks. He said no no no. That's the civil authorities job. That's what we need to get more good men of God elected in the government. And I'm sitting there I can't even speak in this Rush Limbaugh kind of host who was there with me was kind of stunned too. And in the silence as Presbyterian says well I know this must be hard for you to hear Dr. White but God said it first and it's just our job to obey. There's a

lot of that kind of talk out there talk about spiritual violence and when people hear that this is one of the letters I got just a few days ago from a kid. He said Dear Mel I'm so scared and so confused I don't know what to do or who to believe anymore sometimes I wish that I wasn't gay at all life would be much easier than I wish to Jesus and God would have made the subject of homosexuality clear in the Bible. Didn't God realize people would use and abuse this subject. It's not very clear I wish that I could just give up on God and religion but I can't. I live to please God. I've run out of answers and the next step I take will be a gigantic leap. Sometimes I wish that I could just die or be castrated. Then this nightmare would end. I tell you whatever you think about homosexuality there's real people suffering seven times more likely to commit suicide as a gay teenager than a straight teenager. Why are they doing that why have I had to bury so many gay kids who killed themselves. Bright and wonderful because their parents condemn them. Their

churches condemn their school mates condemn them and this all flows out of kind of religion and it's misunderstanding so for me this is not an issue that you can be too liberal about this is an issue we've got to do something to save the kids. Stop with some of the folks we have a caller here in Salem. That's line number four. Hello. Hello if I may just mention of your These ideas that have been going in my head then I'll just hang up. So you'd have to say that. I mean I believe it's God the universe and and God's laws and that we are in a kind of discovery state and that God wants us what's best and what's happening you know want people to do what's best to be happy but it gives us a choice. Now on one program they had a surgeon that described the when he operates that the body is like a factory you know. And when you think about the fact you know trying to. Our bodies are trying to promote health and you know recover from

illness and and our bodies want life. So then when does the hodgepodge you know but you know I try to be objective like I see that sex is for procreation. You know when you look at animals. You know their whole goal is to you know create. Offspring and promote you know the next generation so to speak. But sex has become an addiction in our culture. And I mean there are just so many things out there for Quest you know in the Old Testament men could have four wives. So if you open everything for QUESTION But you know as you said things are choice and you know there's choice and choices can become addiction and then the way the society organizes itself like I understand the Muslims their world is organized that way you know wearing dark clothes and everything because they realize the power of sex and and and then there's people in yoga who use that to try to

you know calm themselves. So it's you know it depends what your goal in life you know now anyway. Kind of hard playing up and see what you say. OK you got it. I guess what I come away with I'm with the caller says and I think that you know various times and places people have believed this that it reflects the feeling that sex is dangerous. Sex is a very dangerous thing sexual passion is a very dangerous thing. And I think it's true that in some way we are and maybe this is just something that in Christianity. I'm not sure about other faiths. I think there is a suspicion. Of the idea and a distrust of the idea that sex can be just for pleasure. And that is that actively sexual activities that can't lead to making babies. There again there's some wrong with that.

Absolutely that's been church teaching from the beginning of time that church assumption of not teaching and in my case of course I had two wonderful children so I did my part and now I'm not a threat to society because the generations go on. If that's it that's a kind of joke for me. The fact is we need more people like we need a hole in the head right now that gay people should be seen as saviors. If they're not going to. The irony is that gay people are having children too and adopting children adopting these AIDS babies the gay people have often the same parental instincts that heterosexual often have. And so I love the way lesbians are good opting kids from all over the world who are unwanted lesbians or having children by artificial insemination gay men they're having children with with a surrogate mother. These are responsible caring people who love parenting and who are doing their job. But in terms of sexual intimacy as being a source of pleasure we need to get over that fear but we need to contain it like you said the

passions are really important to us and give us life and joy and it's a gift from God to be sexual. I just wish I had more energy for it. So the other thing that and I don't mean to put words in the caller's mouth. I don't know if this was what you were suggesting or not but I guess also that there are some people who would say. I'm ok with you being gay would you just. Would you just not act a gay. Could you do that. Would you do that for me. I understand that they say be celibate just be celibate. You guys can live together but don't each other. Don't touch each other privately or in the middle. Understand that. But you know celibacy is a studied science it's a gift. Some people have and some people don't in the Catholic Church as Bush did for a long time and we already know what that where that goes. They spent two billion dollars in the last 10 years just settling class action suits against them for priests that couldn't be celibate. Well I speak at a university I often say to a great like 5000 people how many of you have ever masturbated and nobody

raises his hand and then everybody laughs because we in America don't want to talk about these issues. Sex is pleasure or sex is procreation at all let alone homo sex and so for me your program is very important and we just start saying you know you young people are still struggling with masturbation as though we're bad it's not bad it's something that we all do. You know you people who want sexual intimacy it's a natural need to want that sexually for procreation for other reasons. Just to talk about it to see it is a beautiful creation context. And the bill for them. Idiology that backs it up and supports it. When I tell you we could become so much more positive about sex than we are course then there's the movies. But don't go there. Another caller this is champagne slime line. Hello. And yes when I was very small about three or four I played with the neighbor boy and I knew it was a rule differently like that. Things that I liked and way back then. Chris's mother got blamed for the

fact that he he was a little different. So I have known ever since then that homosexuality is not a choice. He didn't choose to be homosexual His mother didn't. So it's really hard for me to understand the discrimination. It has been all these years. Well that's all I have to say. Who I love you. Can we make you a saint. Do you have saints in your church. Yeah. We will now what's her name. Oh and well you know we would know we don't require people together. We'd better stay anonymous. OK. Let's have a go. This gets a And another question and I think maybe people within the gay community actually are a little bit divided on this issue whether it would be better or not to be able to establish without any sort of a doubt that a person is born gay. We could say you know we could do something and we could point to their brain or we could point to something in the end. And

the way the person developing our software so we could say without any doubt and it's not a matter of choice. Being gay is just what you are. And I think within the gay community there are some people you know some people would say you know that would be a good thing and others would say no that's not the issue. That's sort of beside the point. Scientific discovery is also always good. If we can move forward into that realm and find out what's true it's important whether we like it or not. The reason people don't like it is they're fraid people will change it once they discover the gay gene they'll kill it or they'll manipulate it. And gay people throughout the ages have been really important to culture and it would be a terrible thing to lose that wonderful quality. So I think people are afraid of it. Simon Levey a great scientist said to me the other day it's probably so difficult to know how you become gay how sexual orientation is decided both in prenatal and postnatal both by nature and by nurture. And he says you know I don't know much about God but I think the creator really wanted it to be

complex so they couldn't change it. And so he says the only gay gene is Calvin Klein. By the way this in a lot of other things here on our website it w w w dot Soulforce dot org. And if people are interested in going to Washington D.C. with us and standing and confronting this Catholic teaching to do go to w w w dot Soulforce org and see what we're doing and maybe join up we'll try to get. We have a couple callers here would try to get one more. The first person here in line. Line 1 in Champaign. Hello. Yes I want to change gears just a little bit. This is an honest question. Are the gays not pretty much behind the hate crime legislation that's coming up a lot now and is that Mr. White comfortable with the court judging the motives of people. I hang up and listen. I think all all crimes are hate crimes. And so in that point I really agree with you. I think some of the motive behind hate crime legislation is to say that there are certain penalties that need to be imposed when someone kills a

Jew for being Jewish or kills a Muslim for being a Muslim or kills a gay for being gay or a black person for being black that that they increase that they simply include those hate crimes in that legislation which causes often gives more finances to the to the chase than more definition to the law. So I don't know why I'm I'm mixed on that I just wish we would stop hating anybody and I don't know quite how to do that so I vote for the hate crime legislation as a way of at least keeping this discussion going. Well we're going to have to stop at this point because we have used the time for anyone who is here in and around Champaign-Urbana. You're certainly welcome to hear our guest the Reverend Mel White will be speaking today at the Friday forum. This is at the university y on south right down on the campus a little bit past noon he'll be there so anyone is invited it's free and open to the public. And we want to say to you Robin Wright thanks very much. You're welcoming.