Shutterbug Mama

It’s Love Thursday over on Shutter Sisters, so go check it out.

For my Love is Love is Love (Part 1) post, click here.

I had a long talk with my mother yesterday while she was over at our place. It probably was not the typical conversation you would expect between a daughter and her conservative evangelical Christian Korean mom. It had to do with her attitudes towards homosexuality. I think it was a mutually enlightening and shocking talk for the both of us. Shocking to her because she had no idea how strongly I felt about most churches’ stance on and attitudes towards the LGBT community, and shocking to me because I had no idea how misinformed she was regarding homosexuality.

The reason I brought this topic up with her is that I’ve been wondering about the prevalence of Koreans coming out as LGBT in Korea and in the U.S., especially among the Korean Christian church subculture. While I do not make light of the persecution and discrimination faced by those who are LGBT in any culture, I can’t help wonder about their experience in Korean culture because that is something I happen to be familiar with. Koreans are deeply ingrained in Confucianism, and reverence for elders and conformity to familial and society’s expectations are deeply held values, while individuality is not. I know so many Koreans even here in the U.S. who repressed their artistic inclinations and dreams to become the doctors and lawyers and financial planners that their parents desired. I used to know a guy (Korean) whose parents threatened to commit double suicide at his wedding because he was marrying someone whose social class and educational background weren’t good enough for them. And you thought those Korean soap operas were being melodramatic…

So my mom said that as far as she knew, people coming out openly as being LGBT was becoming more common in Korea, but that to her it was unheard of among Korean Christians in the U.S. That latter part is a bit dubious to me, and I would attribute it to either kids not telling their parents for fear of being disowned, of disappointing their parents, of rejection, etc. or to parents being too ashamed to talk about it and pretending it isn’t true.

When I asked my mother point blank what she thought about the treatment of LGBT people by the church, she said it was something that she didn’t feel the need to think about. The insinuation was that she didn’t think it was that big of a deal, it didn’t concern her, and she didn’t feel like it was an issue deserving of her time and effort. I was flabbergasted. She was basically saying that she didn’t care.

And I am afraid that she is not the only one amongst those deeply entrenched in the Christian subculture. Now I think I get it, how so many churches can stand by and do nothing while a significant segment of humanity is persecuted, harassed, discriminated against, and not afforded the basic right to be who they are—openly and without fear. It’s because so many are misinformed, ignorant of facts, and too uncomfortable with the subject to realize that this is something they should care about.

Here is a list of a few things my mother was unaware of or misinformed about to give you an idea:

• Until recently, she didn’t realize that being gay could be inborn. She thought it was deviant behavior born of deviant choices, and I’m pretty sure she would attribute it to demons. And while she now acknowledges that some people are born gay, she still thought this was the minority and that the vast majority of homosexuals could be “cured” through prayer and counseling if they REALLY wanted to change. She really believes that ex-gay ministries are successful.

• She let it slip that she believed AIDS to be a “gay” disease and in some way evidence that God condemns homosexuality.

• She thought homosexuality was just about physical sex. It didn’t occur to her that homosexuals fall in love like heterosexuals do and that there’s so much more to it than sex. I asked her if sex was the first and only thing on her mind when she had experienced falling in love or being attracted to someone, and she sort of got my point, but I could tell she still found it hard to believe that two people of the same sex could love each other the way heterosexuals do.

• She had no idea that there was even a debate on what the Bible actually says about homosexuality. This is a very common misconception. Something that doesn’t really get discussed very often in fundamentalist or even Evangelical Christian churches is that the Bible WAS NOT WRITTEN IN ENGLISH!!!!!!! This may seem like an obvious thing, but when you’re raised in the church, and that printed book so revered and idolized by everyone who has authority over you says that HOMOSEXUALS are going to hell, it doesn’t occur to you that the word being translated as HOMOSEXUAL could mean something entirely different from the idea of a loving, committed relationship between two people of the same sex. There is, in fact, quite a bit of debate on what the Bible says about homosexuality (the very little it supposedly gets addressed at all), and I think that many, if not most, evangelicals assume that only liberal (and therefore unbiblical) Christians would go so far as to believe that the Bible does not condemn homosexuality as a sin.

And yet, I have hope. My mother didn’t shut down the conversation, for one thing, and while she said she was shocked at my level of conviction, she did ask me for some books to help her better understand the issue. And while maybe she may not become the next Peggy Campolo (Tony Campolo’s wife) of the Korean community, I can hope and pray that with a dispelling of myths and lies, and by hearing the stories of real people, that she will at least have more compassion for the LGBT community and have the courage to encourage those in her community and circle of relationships to do so as well.