Prayers for Bobby - Leroy Aarons [61]
In and of itself, divinely inspired love is neither male nor female, and follows only one rule as it searches for another lonely heart. Love must be true to its God-given nature, be it homosexual or heterosexual.
When God views a loving and caring heart he is pleased and all is well with him. He is not concerned with our sexuality, but with the vast numbers of humanity who are not being loved and cared for; those living in physical poverty, poverty of the soul and spirit. I feel what the Apostle Paul must have felt on the road to Damascus when God pierced his conscience. Paul’s life was flooded with God’s Holy Light, causing him to be blinded for three days so that his error in persecuting the Christians might be revealed to him. The scales fell from Paul’s eyes and he was converted to Christ.
My soul was flooded with darkness so that my error might be revealed to me. I believed I was doing right in the name of Christ. I did not know my soul; my conscience was in bondage to the people and ministers who stand in God’s stead. I went along in blind allegiance, unwittingly persecuting, oppressing gay and lesbian people—my own son. The scales of ignorance and fear that kept my soul in darkness have fallen from the eyes of my soul, my conscience. I have been set free to have faith in, trust in the dictates of my conscience.
I no longer believe that an entity called Satan has the power to guide my conscience. This belief was very, very intimidating to you. There are those who will claim that I have been listening to Satan, that I have become a heretic. I would rather be branded a heretic while helping a child of God out of the gutters of this world, where the church and I have thrown them, than to pass by on the other side muttering under our breath, “The wages of sin is death.” Rather this than to look away from the pain and humiliation of a child lying helpless.
The heart that hungers and thirsts for God’s love will find it in the Bible. It has been said the eyes are the mirror of one’s soul. When we look into God’s mirror [the Bible] will we see God’s reflection of love gazing back? Or will we see an evil reflection of man’s inhumanity?
Reviewing what she had written, Mary was a little taken aback at the intensity with which she had passed sentence on the church. Yet there was no denying that Mary felt, as Joy would say, “ripped off” by the church. It should be held accountable, Mary believed, first for its tunnel vision about the human condition, and second for imposing that vision on people like herself who lacked the tools to resist biblical brainwashing.
She soon had the opportunity to make her first public statement on the subject. The local newspaper, the Contra Costa Times, ran a story in June 1986 about a group of Christians that specialized in helping homosexuals go straight. Mary fired off a letter, which the paper printed:
God did not cure our son Bobby, who was born a homosexual. The few that may have been “cured” by God were not born homosexuals. Due to the false propaganda, psychological abuse, and false interpretations of biblical passages concerning homosexuality, our son took his life at the early age of twenty…. Like many of his brothers and sisters in the gay community, our son gave up on love and the hope of ever receiving the validation he so rightly deserved…. There are gay children sitting in our congregations across America. They are tragedies waiting to happen, all due to homophobia and, worst of all, ignorance. Please pray about this.
The letter prompted a personal note from a lesbian deacon at the local MCC church thanking Mary, and noting that “the affirmation of myself as a valuable human being and child of God means so much when it comes from a parent…. Letters like yours, Mary, are another tool that helps to…affirm us.”
Shortly after that, Mary, her P-FLAG friend Betty Lambert, and a third woman, Jackie Costa, called a meeting at the home of a gay rights supporter for