Today I was listening to the UpFront Radio podcast by New American Media (who promotes and covers news & reporting by people of color). One of the August podcasts features an interview of Parvez Sharma, the filmmaker who made "A Jihad for Love," about gay and lesbian Muslims. In it, he said, "I'm a little bit tired of well-meaning, angst-ridden liberals always wanting to jump on the 'save Iran from itself' bandwagon." He's referring to white/Western gay rights people who try to push an agenda of asylum or Westernization for same-sex loving people. He calls this the "It's not right unless there's a pride parade" mentality. I think this is a gay version of Christian arrogance, put forth by well-meaning people.
Emily also brought up an important point in her comment to my last posting: the impossibility of living up to ideals. I think I came across as arrogant myself, as if I've arrived at the 'correct' viewpoint, and I am pristine in loving my enemies and all that. That's not the case. It's more a matter of trying to figure out what it means to love and be civil in the face of profound disagreement and possibly even harm. The last time my mom said, "...but I still love you," I had to stop and ask, "what does that even mean?" I had to ask myself that. What does it mean to be angry at my mom, but to still love her. What does it mean for her to love me and not accept a significant part of my life (not to mention that my partner is part of makes me loveable and who supports my love for her). My mom is advanced over many conservative Christian parents of LGBT children, in her unwillingness to kick me out of her life, to break communications entirely (and I guess I am advanced in maintaining a relationship with her). But what does it mean to love me without accepting that I'm gay? What does it mean to love her without accepting her anti-gay stance as theologically accurate in a broad sense? I refuse for our "love" to be abstract--it has to take concrete form somehow. Mom and I agreed that love took the form of still calling each other once a week.
The other side of maintaining civility and space for people I disagree with is knowing how to bow out when I can't maintain civility. There has to be room for people to say "I can't have this conversation" because it's too painful or triggering. Right? I don't know. I found out that Parvez Sharma has a blog at ajihadforlove.blogspot.com I'm hoping that reading more in his blog, about his interactions with anti-gay Muslims can illuminate what it means to do this kind of spiritual work: insisting on the correctness of his perspective while engaging with those who are different. One of his posts talks about the leader of a Muslim Students Association who says Islam and homosexuality cannot be reconciled, but who thanks Parvez for humanizing Islam. Dialogue continues in that kind of environment. I don't know, I'm starting to ramble.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
You didn't sound arrogant at all. I just believe in the power of confession. When I'm around tender-hearted souls trying to keep relationships of difference alive, trying to keep dialogue alive (which is a lot b/c I work in ministry!) I often feel the rub of my own hardness. I wish I was more like you, like Marjorie, like James--all people who try to see the "good" in folks that think/act/believe from places of intolerance and judgement. But the truth is, if I traded places with you, I wouldn't even speak to my mother. I'm outraged by the stupidity of anti-gay stances in the world, and I find it even further disruptive and destructive that folks can limit the love they feel for their CHILDREN. I would travel the world over ten fucking times to have a son like you Wade. That's the truth. I don't understand it. I don't respect it. So yes, I perpetuate the very patterns of intolerance and disrespect that I call out in other. It keeps me at lengths from people, isolated and infuriated a lot of the time. It doesn't keep me in dialogue, instead it puts me at odds with folks. I see the hypocrisy in my stances, the ways in which I limit my own potential to do justice and kindness and mercy. But here's the thing: I don't know how to be different. So I confess and hope that something greater than my brain, body and current way of inhabiting form on Earth can change me.
Post a Comment