(Guest Post)

** In honor of our readers, we are taking guest posts for the next couple of weeks. If you are interested in trying your hand as a guest blogger, please submit an op-ed 400-1000 words to wbesen@truthwinsout.org.

Regina Griggs and Peter Sprigg are at it again, trying to convince people their opposition to marriage equality is just and “loving”. They start off by mentioning the ballots on marriage equality that have been lost as though popularity of a position makes it moral – that’s a logical fallacy guys.

They then ironically try to claim Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays (PFOX) is something it’s not by saying “Note, however, that the title of our organization includes the phrase, “and Gays.” Many of those who look to PFOX for support are parents and/or friends of people who still self-identify as gay and engage in homosexual relationships.

Peter and Regina — having people contact your organization who oppose the sexual orientation or gender identity of their friends and family doesn’t make PFOX a friend of LGBT people. I’ve often been impressed with the audacity of Regina claiming PFOX is “Parents and Friends Of Ex-gays and Gays.” So, one day I called her and asked her in what way her organization was the friend of gays.

Regina replied: “We support gays’ right to self-determination and that is equality.” And then — obviously in fear of discussion on that point– she hung up. Regina, its not equality when the main activity of your organization is denying gays the same right to marry that heterosexuals have. You’re not the friend of gays when your organization is dedicated to promoting the idea that same sex relationships are unhealthy and to be discouraged at every opportunity. Every major mental and physical health organization agrees that same sex relationships are a normal, natural, and healthy variant of human sexuality. If you were a moral person you’d accept that fact.

Regina and Peter claim “It is a myth that disapproval of homosexual conduct equals hate toward homosexuals.”

Our conduct derives from who we are as people. As much as Regina and Peter would like to do so, one cannot divorce a person’s conduct from who they are. Gayness, just like heterosexuality, is a core feature of who a person is and if you hate gayness you in large part hate the gay person – there’s no way around it.

Regina and Peter go on to say, “Some people with same-sex attractions (SSA) choose to abstain from homosexual sex. Others seek professional help to change their sexual orientation, and many have succeeded. For a loved one to encourage those responses, rather than to affirm homosexual behavior, is just as loving as a parent or friend trying to encourage other choices they believe are in the person’s best interest.”

By this time it is well established that people cannot change same sex desires into heterosexual desires. Some gays and lesbians want to be heterosexual not because heterosexuality is in any way superior to gayness but because they seek change as a means to escape the degradation and second class citizenship forced on them by an anti-gay society filled with people like Regina and Peter. For a friend or relative of a gay person to encourage them to sacrifice who they are and live a lie to appease terribly misguided anti-gay people is not in any way loving. That really is hatred.

Peter and Regina end by trying to justify their denial of equal rights by claiming marriage is about children. They say that gays and lesbians can’t have children, and that “Men and women are complementary in a way two persons of the same sex can never be.” If the anti-gays really cared about children they’d acknowledge that many gay and lesbian couples have children and those children benefit from married parents in the same way children of heterosexuals benefit from marriage.

Or is it that anti-gays like Peter and Regina want to take away the children of gays and lesbians? Do they think when a heterosexual biological parent rejects their child and a gay couple takes him or her in, that child should be forced to live with a divorced parent that doesn’t want her? If this is what the anti-gays really want its time they came clean and admitted it to the world.

And, of course, those who’ve been in loving same sex relationships know that one partner can complement another in an exceptionally fulfilling way that is the equal of any heterosexual relationship. I’ve been married to both a man and a woman and I can attest that one most certainly isn’t superior to the other. Although the physical sensations are different, the love, caring, and nurturing of each other doesn’t vary because of the gender of one’s partner.