Posted by Stuart Gilman (67.68.80.250) on December 19, 2002 at 18:00:06:

In Reply to: Re: Rejecting an active, promiscuous Gay Man from our home posted by Nick Stone on December 19, 2002 at 09:01:18:

THIS IS A REPEAT OF A POST UP TOP WITH VARIATIONS.
IT IS A RESPONSE TO NICK STONE'S GENEROUS OFFERING OF
THE QUOTES ATTRIBUTED UNOFFICIALLY TO GUARDIAN:

I truly appreciate your comments and distinctions.
(When you have a dilemma and want to make a decision,
using this great formula provided by the Guardian
is extremely helpful. Yet, somewhat of a segway -

When you have lived with a woman/wife for nearly
thirty years there is a commonality or sharing
of consciousness, or identity. In some cases,
two people mesh to an extent that is exceptional;
sometimes it is less so, but it is always there.

To make a Bahai decision that excludes self (the issue
raised by anon today) when one has been married
for a long while is difficult. If my wife is the
person most offended by someone, it is difficult
if not impossible for me to know if my own
negative feelings and thoughts are truly autonomous.

Making Bahai decisions, or making choices that I
think are within a true and fair Bahai framework
as opposed to a personal and ethical framework, raises
the question. It does not answer it. It is like
asking what would God do? What would Baha'u'llah do?
And we cannot know, except when we read a specific
text of interdiction. Even here, though, we have a
problem, because all great religious leaders utter
edicts and morals contextually. So we can find in
one place, "If your enemy gives you poison, give him
honey" .. and in another, "if your neighbour burns down
your house, burn him to death" (paraphrases, Kitab-i-Aqdas)

[So, as regards the question of the rejection of a gay,
promiscuous, lewd and boastful man whose life is a
pornography within our own moral views, it is my wife
who has the greater sense of rage and unforgiveness.

Therefore, though I have patients whose problems
are those of sexual deviance, these patients come to me
for the purpose of changing. This poses no problem. The
salient difference here is that this man is not a patient
and has no interest whatsoever in changing. In fact, his
passion is to find as many more sexual partners as he can,
the younger the better. I apologize to all who do not even
want to read these distasteful facts of my life, or of
life's distasteful facts at all.]

Thanks again.

this topic is closed - post at bahai-library.com/forum