Sunday, August 09, 2009

My Gay Friend

M Everyone in school thought I was gay. The funny thing was, I wasn't.

The funny thing was, that in a hypersexualised school where horny 14 year old teenagers actually dragged a donkey into a dorm and attempted a really unnatural act I was the one considered to be er, different.

The fact is that I have had many gay friends, and through them I have learned many lessons about healing, compassion, and sexuality.

Yet it was still interesting that I had so many encounters with gay people. At college, my best friend came on to me, and maybe it was my extreme sexual naiveté and maybe it was just my own inner self protection that told me this wasn't my choice, but it took me many years to realise my best friend was gay.

Such things were not unknown in Pakistan; at college there were many young men who had lovers (the others would peek through the windows and watch) and many of them went on to marry and have children. But my best friend was, and remains, gay.

Now I've seen this in many Islamic countries, even in Iran. As long as the person is discreet, you usually are left alone. My friend, being part of the elite, had an added layer of protection. In Iran, homosexuality is a capital crime, and in Pakistan punishable by a hundred lashes (though many charges it seems are politically or financially motivated) but my deepest sadness would be the nonacceptance of these men and women by their family or society.

You see, God doesn't discriminate against gays, nor does God love them any less than the rest of his creation. This is one thing I hold against all religions, their artificial rules and control of self-ruling people's sexuality.

The thing is, God gave humanity free choice. And if people choose to be gay, bless them. When my Muslim father said a hurricane in Halifax was God's punishment for a Gay Pride parade in Toronto I asked whether God couldn't get directions to Toronto and when a Christian pastor said God punished the US for its homosexuals I said Hurricane Katrina was a result of the imbalance in the earth and not God's punishment (though the US has its own, terrible karma, which has nothing to do with sexual morality, it still has ONE last chance to change-they must follow me)

Though to be absolutely honest, I do think man and woman is the natural order of things because of the yin yang flow of energy, but that does not take away your freedom of choice.

I have noted there are three areas in which our karma can be primarily manifested:

1. Our relationships.
2. The society and culture we are born into.
3. Being born as a man or a woman.

So what if those who were men in a previous life were born as women, and women, men?
What if we were confused about our sexuality because we were men in women's bodies and women in men's bodies? Is that our fault? No it isn't, we may or may not be predisposed, and it's not a genetic fault, or a disease that needs to be 'cured' or 'worked through'. It's a part of our healing journey, and that's the only way it can be approached. It doesn't matter what choice you make, as long as you're at peace with your choice. And if I talk about the balance between the male and female energy, then how you express it is, entirely up to you.

So here I am in Toronto in 1970 and I'm getting a come on from women and men. A man comes out of an elevator and kisses me, a complete stranger, full on the lips. Cool. Would I like a coffee? Sure. We chat. Would I like to go to his home? Not wishing to mislead him, I said, "just to let you know, I'm not homosexual" (gay wasn't used then)

A spiritualist reverend (another friend) asks if I'd like to have sex with him "you'll really like it". I decline and read his palm "You'll be married and have a son when you're 30" He did.

Maybe my male female vibe confused people. Maybe it was my natural friendliness :) And I was now becoming really really heterosexual ;) so nothing much happened for a while, till I began to commit to my healing work.

The AIDS epidemic really frightened a lot of people. I volunteered my time at an AIDS clinic, and when they couldn't get around to setting up a schedule, I visited patients at home. Even those with full blown AIDS actually got better. Btw, AIDS is a man made virus, designed to target certain populations. I knew this psychically and spiritually, but when I confirmed this with my own research and through my activist friends, this filled me with a rage that I still feel to this day. And I don't like this retroviral crap or criminal organisation called Big Pharma either.

There was a young man named Daniel who came to our clinic. He'd already been helped with a macrobiotic diet and through the spiritual healing became really well. He came to all the weekly meditations and workshops and was the sweetest person. When Aruna was born he held her for such a long time and I could see how much he wanted to be a father. In his family only his sister accepted and defended him, so we were his extended family.

When we moved to the U.S., without the regular treatments, he became ill. He passed away after a year, and we never found out until we returned. He forgave his family at the end, and he's at peace now, but he didn't die of AIDS, he died of a broken heart. How could any parent deny their own child; how could any deity deny his own creation?

I make clear that in healing one helps the body heal, the mind to be at peace, the spirit to be free. It isn't my place to tell people what they should or should not be or do. If they ask for help in anything, I do so as a neutral party. If it had been in Daniel's karma to be who he was, that was fine. If he wanted to at least have a family of his own that would have been great. If he'd asked me to officiate at his marriage then I would have, because who was I to deny we can not control who we love, to someone who had shown me such faith?

Because it is possible to love any and all beings. Because even if I did not love my friends that way, I loved them still. My male, female, tran gendered friends, to let them know that God would love them always.

I had to decide between two movie posters for this article, My Beautiful Launderette, and Wilde. Wilde, then, because I'd played Ernest in a school play. Both great movies about human love. I also recommend Touch of Pink, and eventually I suppose I'll see Brokeback Mountain, even though I thought at first it might be too Hollywoody :)

37 comments:

Xanadu said...

I guess I'm not qualified to talk about this subject. No personal experience, you see! :)

Man From Atlan said...

Of love?

Anonymous said...

I was referring in jest to your title, taking a passing swipe at my flowery friend. (Remember Fleur?)

Will comment on your article when I've sorted out some problems with my computer. Security system playing up. Until later...

X

Xanadu said...

Whew, sorry I can't agree with you, dear Naseer!

Personally, I find both male and female homosexuality unacceptable from a moral point of view. I believe strongly that such behavior is an offence against the universal order.

What women do together in the dark I can countenance aesthetically, but not morally. What men do together in the dark is neither aesthetically nor morally pleasing. It's yucky.

As Hamlet said, “Give me some civet to sweeten my imagination!”

Xanadu said...

I've had many women come on to me. My looks and manner seem to attract them. Fleur above all, though 12 years my junior, has done her best to inveigle me into her bed. I stood firm. I knew that her partiality for women stemmed from her experiences in early childhood with a sexually insatiable nanny. Fleur wasn't born lesbian, she was corrupted into it as a child.

Homosexuality is essentially a fetish. As one acquires a fetish for legs or breasts, for shoes or belts, for little children or old people, so one acquires a fetish for one's own sex. All fetishes have their origin in masturbation, including the fetish of homosexuality. I’ll tell you at a later date how a young man acquired a passion for exceptionally old and decrepit women. In order for him to be turned on, they had to be 70-80 years old.

Should we condemn this young man? No, of course not. But neither should we pretend that God made him that way, or that his behavior is natural and praiseworthy. Frankly, it's sick.

Xanadu said...

Homosexuality, when all is said and done, is one of the commonest fetishes. It can be cured — but not if the sufferer refuses to recognize it as a disease.

I’ve managed to introduce Fleur to a nice young man called Alex. Every orgasm he gives her will help to normalize her now. She is being de-lesbianized day by day. I'm extremely pleased with the progress my dear Fleur is making.

Do you condemn me for what I’ve done for Fleur? Should I have left to her own lesbian devices?

Man From Atlan said...

Well since everyone considered Fleur to be a literary device she'd have been left to your devices:)I guess, but let's address each of your arguments.
In what way would homosexuality be immoral? Perhaps a tribal god may have wanted to ensure the survival or cohesiveness of the tribe with all sorts of rules on sin and go forth and multiply, but those conditions no longer exist.
The natural order of things might require that you get married and have children. You're in your 30's, have you done either, and would that be not be a choice, whether to do so or not? The homosexual would presumably, have the same right to make that choice as you do. If you fornicate one way and he or she does another, is that not all equally offensive in the eyes of an Abrahamic god? Or, if you're not a virgin, is your 'sin' morally less offensive?
I imagine the reason you find male homosexuality more 'yucky' than lesbianism is because of anal sex. Well, heteros, and even lesbians do go that route, quite a few do actually. Which would offend you more then, and why? Or are we just debating your esthetically centered view?
Please also clarify whether homosexuality's a 'fetish' or a 'disease'? A fetish is an acquired fixation on an object which leads to psycho-sexual arousal. Usually treated by aversion therapy, never proven to work on homosexuals.
A disease on the other hand must have a cause and a pathology based on identifiable factors, which, once one removes moralistic posturing, becomes harder to prove.
Is it in the DNA? Is there a homosexuality gene? A pill that can cure it? Let's follow the causative factors in Fleur's 'pathology'. Seduced by a nanny? Or if a male, abused at public school? Wouldn't they deserve your compassion instead of judgement then? Especially when many of them say they wish they could 'change' (so they can be accepted by society) but can't?
So if it's a disease, then would you say the same to the cancer victim, they can change? I haven't seen a therapy that works, yet so mnay gays are full of loathing due to societal disapproval they pay (and lose thousands) on such 'therapists'
It might be argued that you protest too much on the subject, perhaps sublimating your own unconscious desire. That would be cool, actually, though I would not urge you to act or not act on that impulse.
You ARE a bit flamboyant and exhibitionistic, of course, and I always thought that a part of your charm. If you have an Alex or an Alexa :) in your life, then more power to you.

Xanadu said...

Dear MFA, please keep your cool and don't get angry with me! Remember two things. Most of the guys you get on so well with on Xymphora would agree with me in looking askance at homosexuality, particularly gay sex between men.

You get on well with Lobro, right? Lobro's attitude is identical to mine. He said he found male homosexuality pretty repulsive. Lesbianism he thought was okay, provided the participants were young and attractive. (He didn't like the idea of butch lesbians). Laurie, on the other hand, was repelled by the idea of lesbianism and found male homosexuality marginally more acceptable, though she specified that the participants had to be young and attractive.

How would you answer these old friends of yours?

You can see, surely, that we are not making factual statements here. None of the things we are saying about homosexuality can be “scientifically proved.” We are making value judgements.

How can we agree on whether a particular poem or piece of music is beautiful or not? How can I agree with you that homosexuality is fine if you refuse to agree with me that it is yucky? Am I to say I like strong cheese just because you like it?

It takes all types, MFA.

You are welcome to your opinion. The attempt of the gay lobby to strong-arm the rest of us into parroting its views amounts to no more than ideological totalitarianism — a form of verbal bullying.

Xanadu said...

You make a mistake in calling me "judgmental". Am I judgmental if I say to the man at the fish counter, "Thank you, but I don't think I'll have that particular fish — it's a bit too smelly for me!"

Much of what you say about tribalism and "changing conditions" — which ought to make homosexuality more acceptable today — makes good sense. I won't deny that. But how do you think our notions of "good" and "evil", "right" and "wrong", originated? These feelings don’t come to us from reading the Bible, the Quran, or the Bhagavad Gita. They are instinctual reflexes, genetically encoded within us. They are the sum total of the wisdom of countless generations. The Wisdom of the Ancients — otherwise known as "traditional morality".

Man learnt by trial and error that playing with fire was dangerous, that it hurts if you put your finger into a flame. So it is with evil. Man learnt that "X" and "Y" were evil because their consequences were evil.

But back to homosexuality.

How would you feel if you were a married woman with two kids and you discovered one day that your husband was cheating on you with another man? How would your children feel if they were told that their beloved father was having anal intercourse with another man? That he was going to abandon his family and shack up with another guy? Surely you can see that such a situation is grotesque, ugly, cruel, and not to be borne?

Xanadu said...

It surprises me to note that in your espousal of the "new morality" — which amounts to an attack on the "traditional morality" that regards homosexuality as wrong — you are in fact a supporter of Nietzsche's Umwertung aller Werte ("revaluation of all values").

As you must know, this is one of the foundation stones of the Frankfurt School — an ideology that is right now destroying the world and leading to endless misery.

Now be nice and keep your cool! Remember we are friends and try to follow your own advice to commenters: "Please keep it polite, thanks." :)

Anonymous said...

The thing about homosexuals I find tiresome and maybe a bit exasperating is their tendency (not all of them, of course) to define themselves first and foremost as gay/homosexual/etc.
Life is seen and felt primarily through a sexual prism and although not a habit exclusive to homosexuals, this is nonetheless not very impressive to me.

On the other hand, anyone (Wilde) whose deathbed last words are "either that wallpaper goes, or I do," IS quite courageous, impressive even.

Homer

Lalara said...

xanadu and I are both ardent admirers of wilde. the fact that he was gay has no relevance to his literary genius. btw, i thought his last words were uttered as he was sipping a glass of champagne on his deathbed:

"(Sigh, sigh) I am dying beyond my means!"

Man From Atlan said...

Sweetie :) we aren't talking about making homosexuality compulsory nor do I subscribe to Nietzsche or Frankfurt.
We're all friends talking to each other, and i wasn't upset at all, (nor judging:)you) just using logic to understand your position, and asking questions, in the Greek :) manner.
Nor did I call you judgemental, which is to be quick to judge everything which discomforts you. I asked that IF homosexuality was a disease, as you claim, then there is a causative factor presumably out side their control, in which case "Wouldn't they deserve your compassion instead of judgement then?"
Which you did, a moral sexual judgment. I just asked a few questions which you can answer for yourself.
And you asked me about an encoded morality. I'd agree there is such a thing, but that isn't the same as 'traditional' morality, which is whatever your parents, tribe or religion tell you. Traditions change too, otherwise we'd never evolve.
There is the universal belief system which is encoded within us. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you, love one another, love God. That's about not harming others, and helping the weak and defenseless. The rational might say that's just a tribal defensive mechanism brought about by social beings, I say it's encoded within us by God.
Everything else is just layers and layers of social control by fearful, tribal men.
Yes there are taboos, some I'd agree should exist because they make sense, like against pedophilia, incest, or murder.
But where exactly is the harm in homosexuality, except it offends your sensibilities?
So there used to be taboos (let's say traditions) against marrying outside one's race. We've moved on from that, or are some traditions sacred and some disposable?
You might say that homosexuality is outside the natural order, but it exists in Nature. Would you say then that animals also display fetishes?
You give the example of a married man who leaves his family for another man. I can imagine the hurt, but why should it be more than if he'd left them for another woman?
Children get confused about their identity sometimes. I tell mine that I consider homosexuality a matter of confusion and imbalance, but then who amongst us is not confused and imbalanced? I'd rather teach them compassion than sexual hang ups. I somehow doubt they'll be homosexual, but if any did, I would love that child just as much..
So you (and any one else) can tell the fishmonger the fish is smelly and yucky, or someone they're fat and ugly, and at what point do you stop? There are some things that can't be changed, no matter how much you think you can 'change' them.
So I would be your friend regardless of your views, but remember that prejudice and intolerance, once started, can cut many ways, as a certain young lady found out in a forum elsewhere not so long ago. Otherwise when one talks about love one doesn't mean it, except when it mirrors our own self-reflection?
And as a Wilde and a Rimbaud fan, do you suppose they'd have been who they were if they weren't gay?
Unless you want to identify with Wilde's wife.

Man From Atlan said...

Homer, you're talking about political gays who might define themselves as gays first.
In what way is that offensive any more than people who think they're white or black or hetero?
I'd agree though that as a tool to create a fearful constituency of inward looking group hugging paranoiacs you need look no further than Zionism :)

Xanadu said...

I accept everything you say, Naseer, and it's a pleasure to cross swords with you. One day, with any luck, I will run you through with my rapier! :)

Oscar Wilde said...

I am saddened and disgusted by the vicious attack on me and my kind by poster Xanadu.

Her lack of compassion for my colorful lifestyle is only equalled by her stupidity and general baseness of character.

I should like to post below, for the delectation of Man From Atlan, Homer Paul, and other assorted geniuses, one of the best poems I ever wrote — The Harlot's House:

Oscar Wilde said...

THE HARLOT'S HOUSE

We caught the tread of dancing feet,
We loitered down the moonlit street,
And stopped beneath the harlot's house.

Inside, above the din and fray,
We heard the loud musicians play
The "Treues Liebes Herz" of Strauss.

Like strange mechanical grotesques,
Making fantastic arabesques,
The shadows raced across the blind.

We watched the ghostly dancers spin
To sound of horn and violin,
Like black leaves wheeling in the wind.

Like wire-pulled automatons,
Slim silhouetted skeletons
Went sidling through the slow quadrille,

Then took each other by the hand,
And danced a stately saraband;
Their laughter echoed thin and shrill.

Sometimes a clockwork puppet pressed
A phantom lover to her breast,
Sometimes they seemed to try to sing.

Sometimes a horrible marionette
Came out, and smoked its cigarette
Upon the steps like a live thing.

Then, turning to my love, I said,
"The dead are dancing with the dead,
The dust is whirling with the dust."

But she - she heard the violin,
And left my side, and entered in:
Love passed into the house of lust.

Then suddenly the tune went false,
The dancers wearied of the waltz,
The shadows ceased to wheel and whirl.

And down the long and silent street,
The dawn, with silver-sandalled feet,
Crept like a frightened girl.

Anonymous said...

After reading that spark of, well, I'm not sure if it's genius or not (how would I know?), I felt for a moment I might know the difference between common wallowing in the base senses and a bit of intelligent design.

Homer

Anonymous said...

And yes, Lalara, I stand corrected as to Wilde's last words, and though some might argue quibbling, I won't.

I only hope and pray, practice and sweat for my own last word(s) to be, let's just say, not so mundane.

It is our final exam, after all..

Homer

Xanadu said...

There's a lovely story about Oscar Wilde as an undergraduate at the University of Oxford.

While sitting his final viva voce exam for Greek Translation, he was asked by his examining professor to translate the long passage of Christ's passion and death, culminating in the crucifixion, from the Greek New Testament.

He began to translate enthusiasticaly and rattled on for several minutes, without making a single mistake, when the examiner decided he'd heard enough: "Okay, Oscar, that's splendid! — you can stop now."

Wilde looked up, appalled: "Oh, but sir, do let me continue to see how it all ends!"

Anonymous said...

As I remember, at least according to legend, the last words of Jesus, as He passed His final exam with flying colors, were something about His Father..

I knew that.

Homer

abe said...

Despite finding it repellant, I must admit that homosexuality is an essential and necessary aspect of human nature. That more men are born than women is a fact. That their are are more women in the general populace is evidence of the death toll sexual competition takes among males. Just look at China's gender imbalance and tell me they couldn't use a few Friscos.

Xanadu said...

Nietzsche, Like Buddha, A Disguised Devotee Of Krishna

Homer: Thanks for this link. I've read the article and find it very interesting. I knew of course that Nietzsche was into Indian mysticism, since he had always been a devotee of Schopenhauer, a great lover of the Upanishads.

I note that both these guys were confirmed misogynists. Can't blame them, I guess. We women are a dead loss, I have to admit. :)

Anonymous said...

Oh well Xanadu, there's always Mencken..

Homer

Man From Atlan said...

Thanks, all for supporting the basic premise: Love knows no bounds.
And thanks for writing The Harlot's House, Oscar.
When I think of genius locked up in prison like that, I weep.
Here's one of my favourite quotes:
http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/o/oscar_wilde.html
"A man who does not think for himself does not think at all"

Xanadu said...

In your liberal attitude to sex, MFA, you remind me in many ways of Osho, better known as Bhagvan Shree Rajneesh.

It was Rajneesh who said this, but it could almost have been you: “Any religion which considers life meaningless and full of misery, and teaches the hatred of life, is not a true religion. Religion is an art that shows how to enjoy life.”

Rajneesh thought that sex was the cure for most of our hang-ups. Unlike most religious teachers, he advocated more sex, not less. One caveat though: though Rajneesh was all for sex, he drew the line at homosexuality. He is on record as saying: “Homosexuality is a disease...it is functioning on a very immature level of development.”

http://books.google.com/books?id=-989AAAAIAAJ&pg=PA45&lpg=PA45&dq=Bhagwan+Shree+Rajneesh%27s+attitude+to+homosexuality&source=bl&ots=Hkl1lN4Vo3&sig=tQqkvNnTikpQHNZfnFGGXO6KT44&hl=en&ei=qNuDStu_DZPSjAfA7e2SCA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=3#v=onepage&q=&f=false

Xanadu said...

The point I'm making is this: In our search for "love", there are certain red lines which we place at different points in the spectrum, according to our own tastes. Thus for Rajneesh every kind of heterosexual love is fine, including adultery and fornication — but he drew the line at homosexuality. This was a big no-no for him. It was "unnatural", a "disease."

The red line for you, MFA, is at a different point on the spectrum — you place it at pedophilia and incest. You think these prectices "wrong". (So do most of us). Yet surely you are aware that there are people even more "liberal" than we are who want to legalize pedophilia and incest? They really do believe that our negative attitude to pedophilia and incest is "narrow-minded and repressive".

These are points you ought to consider, MFA. Where are the barriers? Who decides where to put them?

Man From Atlan said...

Many people have compared me with Rajneesh, Xanadu, except they missed the following:
He taught freedom, I asy that comes with responsibility.
He merged his ashram with western followers of the Human Potential movement http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rajneesh and I find western therapies too talky, and not enough in terms of karma, or action.
He, like Maharaji, made money making the focus of his group; while I financed my spiritual activities primarily out of my own employment, often to the detriment of myself and my family.
Aside from that, Rajneesh is Rajneesh, and Naseer is Naseer.

Man From Atlan said...

And to draw lines, we spoke of universal, self evident codes of morality, where harm is obvious, and has nothing to do with religious or sexually repressed objections.
So I will choose not to be homosexual, but choose compassion for those who do.
For a penance, you can write about what Wilde, and Rimbaud, and Michelangelo has meant to you.

Xanadu said...

So I will choose not to be homosexual, but choose compassion for those who do.

I have as much compassion for these people as you, MFA, as my tender relationship with Fleur must surely make clear to you. Nor have I ever breathed a word against male homosexuals except to state in strictest confidence on this blog that I don't think what they are doing is right.

Be reasonable, Naseer. Did Christ lack compassion when he told the woman taken in adultery: "Go, and sin no more!" Was he being unduly harsh in suggesting to her that she was wrong to cheat on her husband?

Man From Atlan said...

I'm sure you feel compassion, Xanadu, though this isn't the only blog where you've expressed your er, feelings on the subject. But never mind, my lectures on tolerance have to do with me adressing homosexuals that in the end they really ought to ignore the disapproval of society,instead of just adding to any self loathing destructive behaviours.
And you misread the parable of Jesus.
1. "Let he who is without sin, cast the first stone" Jesus is going against traditional morality here, since the punishment in Judaism (and Islam) is pretty severe. This is a lesson about forgiveness "Then neither do I condemn you"
2. When he says "then go and sin no more" he also knows, that being human, she probably will.. yes he told her it was wrong, he also knew how difficult it would be. That is compassion, and not an injunction from an unforgiving god.
People fornicate, and they adulterate, and break any numbers of rules. We can tell people what is right and wrong, and there are a lot of things a whole lot more wrong than sexual acting out, but in the end it is neither god nor society that punishes them, it is themselves.
And it is karma, but karma isn't punishment.

Xanadu said...

Can the burden of karma be lifted, do you think,
in the sense that you can be let off your debts?
In other words, having done great evil, can evil
consequences be avoided?

Man From Atlan said...

Karma is the action, the direction one takes which will one day free you from past errors and evil. But karma is also what gives a person what they lack: empathy, wisdom, peace. So when one does great evil, they must make great amends, in a genuine spirit of contrition, and resolve to 'sin no more'
But I haven't met any genuinely evil people, just people who were in pain. And if I lifted that pain, if only briefly, then that was my karma, to teach them the path to God. Theirs would be lifted only when they found what was there.
There was an SAS soldier who'd tried to assassinate Nelson Mandela, he'd been tortured in prison and was in excruciating pain. I removed that pain, but the karma was in his inability to recognise the source. Those are the people I touch briefly, then move on.

Tom V said...

I really liked the essay for its humanity, for its effort to try to understand and forgive. To me that's the general direction we should progress. Sorry, if I couldn't follow the debate which became too complicated and tiresome for me. (Last year I suffered a stroke).

About the issue of homosexuality I'm quite ambigious. To me it's important to distinguish between physical love and non physical love which the Greeks called agapé. On the general level, there's a terrible shortage of love between people, specially between men, where the social choices (at least in the West) are crowded with competition, meanness to the point of open hostilities to cause injury to each other. Specially heartbreaking to me, when we teach our boys and young men that it is permissible and even manly to be cruel to each other, yet affection among them is not. I think it's clearly wrong. On the other hand I am appalled if this love is carried onto the physical realm. There's something spineshiveringly unnatural, and reprehensible, when two men make connection with their bodies.
Sorry, but that is the ambiguity I feel on the issue.

Man From Atlan said...

Tamas, I'm so sorry to hear about your stroke. You have my personal email, or you can try manfromatlan@gmail.com if not. I'd like to help in any way I can, nutrition can really help, vitamin e and c, multi vitamins, calcium/magnesium.
My essay was about forgiveness, but you really touched on the central issue, agape, that men (and women) can have fondness, even love, for each other, and I wrote about that really. But yes, while the physical impression is unnatural and comes from a space of imbalance, I can choose not to, but, 'neither do I condemn thee' or anyone else.
Whatever their karma is, is the life chosen.

Tom V said...

Thank you Dr. Ahmad. I trully felt that we were going to be able to find mutual understanding on this very difficult issue, where opposing value jusgements, originating from various religions and systems of morality are clashing to have an irrevocable and unyielding saying on this issue.
Just like you, I believe that God looks at this deviance in a significantly different way, than Humanity, but in what way different (other than with more understanding), I can't tell, because I don't know. This is in the realm of Divine mystery to me, and I try to be humble enough to except it, thus resist the wordly temptation to judge my fellow man.

Man From Atlan said...

That was my point too, Tamas. Thanks.