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Thursday, September 5, 2013

Comment to John Shore's article on NALT


I posted this as comment #29 to John Shore’s article entitled “Introducing The Not All Like That (NALT) ChristiansProject” The article was written on September 4, 2013.


John, if you had listed “Q” as well, when you said “LGBT-affirming Christians,” I would have at least known that I fit in there, as I am always questioning many things, it seems. The only thing that I’m pretty sure that I am not is ever-straight, other than I have only dated women. What category do you place someone like myself in who is a Christian man who is single, who experiences primarily sexual attractions toward men, who is not ex-gay, not gay, only bisexual way over on the homosexual attractions section of the Kinsey Scale, who isn’t gay-affirming himself and who is not sexually active with anyone, but who has non-sexual attractions mostly toward men? And who accepts and respects people who are gay, ex-gay, anti-gay, bisexual, straight, not yet Christian, or never to be a Christian.
 
Continuing... Sept. 8th:
The commenter, Lymis, had welcomed me with the label of bisexual. 


The moderators of John Shore’s site about the NALT project, deleted my reply to John’s comment to Lymis about his patience, that I posted on Saturday that said, “John, Evan and commenter, Lymis, do you think that Wayne would accept me here?”
I asked this because Wayne was listed in John's and Evan’s articles as being a supporter and likely also a co-founder of the project.  I also asked because John hadn't yet answered my question to him.  And Evan hadn't yet commented on my question.  And John praised the commenter, Lymis, for his patience.  And Lymis had welcomed me with the label of bisexual. 

This reply to a commenter's comment is pending (it's the first time my post here was first listed as pending): (the commenter was referring to people whom the commenter thought were bigots)

Mike Jones September 9, 2013 at 3:22 am
Your comment is awaiting moderation.
Do people view me as a bigot for my decisions about my life? I do believe that same-sex sexual attractions are not sinful and I believe that intimate same-sex sexual behavior is sinful for me.

In addition, my post with my answers to questions posed to me by the commenter, Lymis, is also now still pending, even though his questions and comments to me were posted.  Odd.  Stay tuned.  You can read the questions to me on the site. 
Here is my post that is still waiting moderation:
 
Your comment is awaiting moderation.
 
Lymis, Elizabeth mentioned that from her viewpoint, you can’t be affirming of yourself, but only of other people.  My explanation to Elizabeth shows that it is awaiting moderation.  I had written, “What is the best and most clear term for affirming something within yourself? What I was trying to communicate is that I am attracted to men in a host of ways, and only a small portion of the time do those attractions result in sexual arousal.” 
I’m not in the closet.  My own story was published in 2000.  I was open to all of my friends and people within the church I began attending in 1972, by at least 1995 and before that with all of my close friends.  I haven’t hated myself, before or after other people knew.   
I’ve already said here that I believe it is okay for others to be gay if they believe that to be correct for them, whether they are Christians or not yet Christians or never to be a Christian.  In that comment I had said, “And who accepts and respects people who are gay, ex-gay, anti-gay, bisexual, straight, not yet Christian, or never to be a Christian.”  So, I thought I was being clear there. 
I am personally affirming of my sexual orientation as being bisexual and which is primarily homosexual.  Some people would label that as gay affirming here, others here would label that as ex-gay, and you considered me bisexual.  I thought we established that here gay-affirming was a general concept that included bisexual, transgender and transsexual, intersex, questioning and beyond.   
I believe that I have listened well and carefully to each of the views presented here.  I’m exploring to see if the phrase, “to be gay” means identity, orientation, romantic attraction, non-sexual same-sex attraction or a range of sexual expressions, including for the bisexual, heterosexual sexual expression.   
Thus, I wonder what the term, affirming, means in this context.   
I have found that no matter what setting I am in, some people give me the label of Not All Like That.   
Additionally, I am not yet clear as to what forms of intimate expression the NALT project affirms or feels are moral, or expects its participants to affirm.  The comments here express a range of perspectives.  And John’s and Evan’s personal perspectives might not be the same on this point.   
So, maybe my perspectives are not the same as the commenter, Frank’s, perspectives on who I respect.   I don’t believe that I have tried to tell anyone else what they should do in their life, here in my comments.  I am not gay-affirming of same-sex sexual behavior, but I respect people who are.  I am affirming of people who are gay or who are bisexual in their sexual orientation.  The term gay, in our culture, does not need to be limited to a person’s intimate sexual behavior.  I don’t think that is being coy.  I’m trying to be precise and clear.   
I respect a whole range of people who I don’t approve of.  I think we all do, or can try to.  There is a difference between the concepts of support, respect and accept.   
So, for instance, I am affirming of a person who feels that their identity is gay and has decided to be celibate.  I am also affirming of a person who is bisexual and has decided to be heterosexual in their intimate sexual behavior.  Do those people fall under John’s definition of “LGBT-affirming Christians?”
 
This comment is also still pending moderation; that I mentioned in the other comment:
 

Your comment is awaiting moderation.
What is the best and most clear term for affirming something within yourself? What I was trying to communicate is that I am attracted to men in a host of ways, and only a small portion of the time do those attractions result in sexual arousal.

John Shore and his wife made this video today, Sept. 9th, the same day that my comments are being held for moderation.  My post to this article also received the same response:
Your comment is awaiting moderation.
 
John, for some reason, three of my comments are still awaiting moderation at: http://johnshore.com/2013/09/04/introducing-the-not-all-like-that-nalt-christians-project/comment-page-1/#comment-370851

If the posts like these four are held back indefinitely from John's blog site, I don't have much confidence that the same thing wouldn't happen if I made a video and submitted it to the NALT project. 

I think I am figuring it out...
I posted this reply to my own reply there just now:
Mike Jones September 10, 2013 at 3:08 am
Your comment is awaiting moderation.
I read, "frankly," as Frank, when I commented on this paragraph:
“Frankly, it sounds as though you feel you’re being excluded from the group somehow because of your attractions, when the reason the group doesn’t seem to be for you is that you are adamant about your disapproval of them.” Frank is a commenter at a RNS site. My comment about Frank’s comments won’t make sense here. 

However, as I read the paragraph correctly, and see that it is referring to me and not to Frank, it makes a little more sense. I thought the paragraph had been about the commenter, Frank, and about him feeling like he was being excluded from the group in that, at the RNS article, some people were commenting strongly in opposition to his perspectives. But I hadn’t felt like Frank was being excluded from the discussion in the RNS article comments.

Now, maybe this paragraph makes more sense. I wasn’t feeling like I was being excluded from anything at this site. Elizabeth’s reply was first to welcome me back. So, it appears now that Lymis was referring to my comments being held for moderation and thus excluded from this site. If this is so, it makes more sense, why the message, “Your comment is awaiting moderation,” shows up now for my comments to John Shore’s blog articles. So, maybe it is true that any further comments to this article will receive the same message, and thus not be posted – even though on my end, I see the comment with the pending moderation notice posted to it.

Thus, if I have this figured out correctly now, I take it that the response, "Your comment is awaiting moderation," is a polite way of saying we are deleting your comment from our comments on our article at our blog site.  And since it happens to all further posts that I make to either article on John Shore's blog, I get it that this is the way you can block a commenter automatically.  This seems very similar to what other gay-affirming news media sites did to my comments.  That's what actually triggered me to start this blog site. 

Yup.  Here is the next comment to John's blog article of his video with his wife:
Allie September 10, 2013 at 3:18 pm
Good video. My husband, who was raised Baptist, had one criticism. He would like to point out that the people he was raised among do NOT use their judgment to make a distinction between taking communion wine and being habitually drunk; both are equally sinful to them and they drink grape juice instead, despite that being in direct defiance of Jesus’ specific commandment to drink wine in remembrance of him. They may seem to be deeply interested in what the Bible says, but they really aren’t, when it steps on whatever they have decided to think. They are not big fans of using their judgment (perhaps because many of them know from experience that they have lousy judgment) and they are very big on following human authority figures. Even when the human authority figures CONTRADICT the Bible, they will claim that they literally follow every word of the Bible.
Now, my reaction. Wow, Cat is gorgeous! She’s like a super-hero! I’ve never seen Cat before and I have to say, John, you lucked out, man.

On my end, my comment still sits there as comment #3 for this article. 

Sept. 11th at 5:21pm.  There were 79 comments there, now there are only 74.  So, 5 comments less with no new ones.  Let's see which ones might not be there any longer...  3 of my comments are still there.  So, I don't know which 5 were removed.  My comments there were showing up on my end as awaiting moderation, don't show up at all now.  Again, that's why I started this Blogger blog site entitled, Our Culture and Society.  It shows how my views are treated by some people who are gay-affirming in our culture and society today.



 

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