[Parks] I'm a Decent Human Being, Too | Jackson Free Press | Jackson, MS

[Parks] I'm a Decent Human Being, Too

When I first got to my precinct in Louisiana to vote, the people behind me greeted me cheerfully. They wanted to know where I go to school, what I want to be, what I thought of the rain outside. After we all realized the line we were standing in was where we'd be for almost an hour, they started comparing the wait to the lines for the Louisiana Marriage Amendment a few weeks ago, which were much shorter. That amendment passed by 78 percent of the vote, but was declared unconstitutional by a state judge on Oct. 5.

During that election, I only had to stand in line behind two people (both of whom were wearing rebel flags as pants, I might add). I didn't mention this to my line-friends. There wasn't time. The lady behind me said: "I don't know why that amendment got overturned. It's what the people want. It's what we good Christians want."

From there, she launched into a discourse about those heathen ho-mo-SEX-u-als and how they need to stay away from her children. And then: "If they want to separate church and state, I want my mail on Christmas and Thanksgiving. I want them to have to work on Christian holidays."

For a second, I agreed with them, but then remembering that Christmas's heavy dedication to lavish spending is hardly on par with the don't-store-up-treasures-on-earth bits I've read in the Bible, I quickly decided that Christmas is barely a "Christian holiday," anyway. Thanksgiving never was, as far as I know.

"But they want to take the Bible out of evvvvv-re-thing," she continued. "Evvv-re-thing."

I was assuming at this point that the "they" she referenced were homosexuals or the ubiquitous men keeping us all down, or both. Either way, I felt sure that I was part of the "they," seeing as I had voted against the amendment.

When I got back to Mississippi after driving for two hours in the dark rain, I expected to find that many Mississippians had voted for the marriage amendment here. I've heard plenty of people rant about how evil and perverted homosexuals are. And even those who don't really think that might have followed The Clarion Ledger's endorsement of "why not?"—the paper called the amendment "unnecessary but harmless."

What I did not expect was to come home to find that 86 percent of voting Mississippians support the ban. I guess they, too, were worried about taking the Bible out of evvv-re-thing.

I don't want to take the Bible out of evvv-re-thing—just my Constitution and the other laws that regulate my state. I suspect they would want the Bible out of there, too, if it meant we started obeying Leviticus's rules (or chapter 19, alone).

Though it might warn against the dangers of eating shellfish, harvesting fields with more than one grain, rounding men's beards and cutting women's hair, I actually still believe in quite a bit of the Bible. I still believe that faith without works is useless. I believe in loving my neighbor as myself. I believe in God.

But I'm also a lesbian, which in the eyes of my line-friends makes me pretty useless as a Christian. Never mind the verses they choose to ignore; I'm disregarding the important ones that say homosexuals are living in sin. Homosexuality didn't even make the Ten Commandments; surely there's more to worry about than my kissing, or even just dating, women.

I used to be one of these people, though. I spent years of my life crying by myself thinking God would never love me because I was inherently attracted to women. I tried dating boys, but I didn't feel any closer to God. In fact, when I began to allow myself to date women, I felt much closer to God because I wasn't living a lie anymore.

If these soi-disant Christians would research their Bibles and actually live based on the words, I have a hunch that they'd be bringing more people to Christ. If you want homosexuals to "turn to God," start treating us like we're more than second-class citizens. Many homosexuals actually do love God and feel as if we have a close relationship with Him. Many of us won't go to church, though, because we're told there to eschew our innate attractions—to ignore who we are through no choice of our own.

We deserve rights, too, but "the Church" doesn't want to hear that. Never mind that allowing civil unions, at the very least, might help promiscuity within the gay community to subside. Never mind that allowing loving homosexual couples to adopt children would bring so many children out of adoption homes (is it really better to let children live in adoption homes when many couples would love to raise them in warm, loving homes?).

I don't want the Bible taken out of evvv-re-thing. I just want to be treated like a decent human being, because, well, I am one. My attraction to women doesn't change that. As a character in Jeanette Winterson's novel "Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit" responds when someone tells her to choose between God and women, "I love both."

Millsaps College senior Casey Parks is the assistant editor of the Jackson Free Press and the editor of the Millsaps Purple & White. She is a Louisiana native.

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