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Fifty Centuries

Once upon a time, about fifty years ago,
I was a parish pastor in California.
Once upon a time, I was religious.
It worked that way.

Just before finishing my studies,
I was appointed to be a kind of unordained interim pastor
of a congregation in San Jose.
The Church Council members--all male--
would not allow me to go up to the altar during the services
because I was not yet ordained. That is how it worked.

A couple of years later, at my own parish in Fremont,
our Church Council--not all male--appointed
a very fine man to be our Deacon; that is to say,
to be my assistant during church services.

I will call him Ted. Ted was gay.
He assisted, as a Deacon, for several years,
until he and his partner moved to San Francisco.

I have been thinking about Ted, lately,
amazed at how slow and stupid society can be;
even California society, most of it, at least.

A large branch of the Lutheran Church is about to meet
here in Minneapolis and debate whether
they will ordain gay and lesbians to the ministry.

Since I am no longer religious, I am tempted to say
that it doesn't matter what churches do,
except that it is not just a church problem.
It is a societal problem, and I am amazed
at how slow and stupid society can be.

People are not either straight or gay. People,
almost all people, discover themselves to be
attracted to both males and females;
just in varying degrees, ranging from strongly
one way or the other, to something like disinterest.
Most of us like, and love, both men and women;
not necessarily nor particularly sexually,
but attracted both to some men and some women.

(Truth be told, some people aren't very likeable or loveable,
and many of us don't like them, either way.)

Male dominance and sexual orientation are just
two examples of wrong-headed attitudes and ideas.
Racial prejudice is another. So is religious superiority.

I wish I could say that 50 years is a long time.
It is probably more like 50 centuries.
.

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