#49708 Lesbian roommates

[vorpal blade]

I like the way the female half of Waldorf and Sauron said, "Personally, I would likely react the same way as I would react to the prospect of living with a straight male.*"

I'm surprised that another writer, The Black Sheep, describes herself as someone "whose only close friends from home are gay or bisexual." It makes me wonder why that is, and what proportion of High School students describe themselves as gay or bisexual.

[Katya]

I like the way the female half of Waldorf and Sauron said, "Personally, I would likely react the same way as I would react to the prospect of living with a straight male.*"

What do you like about that?

[vorpal blade]

I think what I like about Waldorf’s answer was the way it neatly side-steps a minefield. “Tegan” states that none of her friends are “gay friendly.” The Black Sheep claims that “It's no secret that you face one of the very least accepting college environments in the country to come out in.” She further states that “You could have really easy-going roommates who decide to live and let live, or you could have really hard-core roommates who either preach repentance with every breath or move out in a fit of terror after threatening to report you to the HCO. There are definitely girls out there who will think that you just can't help being overwhelmingly attracted to all of them, and they will be correspondingly uncomfortable and you will be correspondingly miserable.”

The way I see this question being set up, especially after The Black Sheep’s comments, is that if you voice any objection to having a lesbian roommate you will be called unfriendly to gays, at the least. You will be thought of as uninformed, intolerant or homophobic.

So, how can you express an objection and not step into the minefield? Well, it isn’t hard to see how you might have objections to a “straight” roommate of the opposite sex. No one at BYU should criticize you for that. It puts it into perspective without arousing the ire of the apologists for gay people.

[krebscout]

Oh good, I'm glad I didn't come across as a moron. To you, at least.

-"Waldorf"

[vorpal blade]

Oh good, I'm glad I didn't come across as a moron. To you, at least.

-"Waldorf"

You write a lot of good stuff. You never sound to me like a moron.

[Fredjikrang]

You know, that is two writer 'nyms I have found out this week without even trying. . . Well, one is a former writers 'nym, but still!

[Katya]

The way I see this question being set up, especially after The Black Sheep’s comments, is that if you voice any objection to having a lesbian roommate you will be called unfriendly to gays, at the least. You will be thought of as uninformed, intolerant or homophobic.

Ah, good call. (That said, I still think it's a problematic mindset if applied globally. Where, then are the BYU gays and lesbians supposed to room?)

[krebscout]

(Where, then are the BYU gays and lesbians supposed to room?)

Ah, I may have been unclear here. The asterisk after my statement was to make it clear that yes, the church has problems with unmarried male/female cohabitation, but not with homosexual/heterosexual cohabitation, and so while I wouldn't live with a man I wasn't married to, I would live with a homosexual so long as, say, we didn't share a room (just the way I would handle it if I would/could live with a male).

Any clearer? Not really. But the answer to your question, according to me and my answer, is that Tegan could live with me and like-minded folk.

I only threatened moving out because I hatehatehate living in apartments with contentious vibes, and that's a plausible result.

[TheBlackSheep]

To answer the first question, I attended arts schools from elementary school the whole way up through high school graduation, and as you might predict people were more open with their sexual orientations. I knew a lot of gay guys and girls, but I also had a lot of straight friends. It's just the way it's all worked out that I have more or less fallen out of touch with everyone but two guys that call themselves gay and two girls that call themselves bisexual, and the four of them are four of my very greatest friends.

I didn't mean to come across as overwhelmingly gay pride-y, and I apologize if my response struck you that way. I definitely did not mean to imply that anyone who would ever be uncomfortable with having a gay roommate is homophobic or intolerant. There's a big difference between having an objection and being the sort of person I was attempting to characterize. That being said, I do agree with Katya that if the logic of treating them as someone of the opposite sex was applied universally it would create a huge number of problems. If gay people cannot live with people of their own gender, who do they live with?

My main objective here was to encourage Tegan to take everything on a case by case basis, and I still agree with every word I wrote. I do apologize, though, if you felt my response characterized anyone who disagrees with me as intolerant, bigoted, uninformed, or homophobic.

[Portia]

This semester is convincing me that the only room-roommate I ever want again will be my future husband, should one materialize!

I advocate private rooms for all that can afford them, regardless of orientation.

I wouldn't make any grand announcements, if I were her. For instance, I am hardly ever at home, and not that close to my roommates. I don't need to know that much about their lives. Also, I sort of wonder why you would want to stay at BYU if you fully intend on pursuing relationships with women in the future--seems like it would be a less than ideal place to find someone likeminded--but I guess people have their reasons (scholarships, etc.).

So, if my roommate were lesbian, I'd really rather not know, barring the possibility that we had become close friends. Not so much an issue of "eww, so gross!" as "and this affects my life how?" But I've noticed a lot of people around here grow very close to almost all their roommates--maybe I'm an anomaly.

In very loosely related but mostly tangential news . . . I think you can tell a lot about someone by whether they get more worked up about Rick Warren or Gene Robinson praying at Obama's inauguration.

[vorpal blade]

Katya’s question made me wonder, how does a gay or lesbian obtain an ecclesiastical endorsement to attend BYU?

Thank you TheBlackSheep for explaining some things. It did seem to me that you were implying that anyone with objections to a lesbian roommate was the one with the problem.

[TheBlackSheep]

The Honor Code states that anyone who is a homosexual can attend BYU as long as they are not acting on their feelings of same-sex attraction.

[vorpal blade]

The Honor Code states that anyone who is a homosexual can attend BYU as long as they are not acting on their feelings of same-sex attraction.

I see. I know many people who would not identify a person as “gay,” or “lesbian” unless that person engaged in homosexual behavior. So when you are talking about gays or lesbians at BYU you are talking about people who have same-gender feelings or attraction, but avoid “all forms of physical intimacy that give expression to homosexual feelings.” Furthermore these individuals aren’t “seeking to influence others to engage in homosexual behavior or promoting homosexual relations as being morally acceptable.” Quoting the honor code. Okay, that helps me.

I understand better the problem. BYU has rules against members of the opposite sex visiting bedrooms and bathrooms, but there are no rules against persons living with members of their own sex, even though they may be sexually attracted to their roommates. But then, as has been asked, where are they supposed to live unless you demand that they live alone? It wouldn’t do to let a woman who claims to be a lesbian live in an apartment full of guys. That would be trouble.

[TheBlackSheep]

Exactly. It would either be live alone, or what, find one lesbian and one gay male and have them live together. It's a very complicated situation.

And Vorpal Blade, I'm pleased we're now speaking the same language... And that's exactly what I mean. Once someone starts acting on those feelings, they are out of line in a huge way.

[vorpal blade]

Maybe you, The Black Sheep, or someone else could help me speak the same language in regard to the expression “gay friendly.” Tegan says that none of her friends are gay friendly. Do you suppose she means that none of her friends would be her friends if they knew she was gay?

We have a Christian obligation to show love, kindness, and humanity toward everyone, and so I would think that BYU would excel at being friendly; but perhaps we don’t all agree with what it means to be gay friendly. I remember reading a letter to the editor about a gay person who grew up in the town I live in and when she came back home last October she was appalled at all the “Yes on Prop. 8” signs she saw. She said she hadn’t realized how gay unfriendly our town was. Is this what it means to be “gay friendly,” you can’t support the traditional definition of marriage?

Some people think that any mention of homosexual relations being morally “unacceptable” is not gay friendly. Do I have to give up my belief in the Bible and in modern prophets in order to be gay friendly? If I didn’t vote for Barack Obama am I unfriendly? How much do I have to agree with a person in order to be considered friendly?

Along those lines I wonder about what it means to be “accepting” of gay people. Why would one think that BYU is one of the least accepting college environments in the country? Does acceptance of gays mean that I must condone homosexual behavior? Is acceptance of wrongful behavior the price of gay friendship? Do I have to accept the sin to tolerate the sinner?

While my questions are directed toward The Black Sheep, I’d like to hear from others as well.

[Katya]

It wouldn’t do to let a woman who claims to be a lesbian live in an apartment full of guys. That would be trouble.

Why the use of the word "claims," out of curiosity?

[vorpal blade]

It wouldn’t do to let a woman who claims to be a lesbian live in an apartment full of guys. That would be trouble.

Why the use of the word "claims," out of curiosity?

I was just thinking that if you had a rule that lesbians can live in a guy's apartment, but straight women can't, then any woman who wanted to live in a guy's apartment would only need to claim that she was a lesbian. She could say that she had feelings for other women, but didn't act on them. Therefore she would be safe from any honor code violations. The exception to the rule of no cohabitation would negate the enforcement of the rule, since they could all claim to be secretly gay or lesbian. How could you prove they weren't?

[bismark]

Why would one think that BYU is one of the least accepting college environments in the country?

possible examples?:

byu is one of the few remaining places where "gay" (as in "thats so gay!") is a negative slang.

byu is one of the few places where someone would actually write a letter to the editor about guys who dress nicely really being closet homosexuals.

[Laser Jock]

Vorpal,

I think that 'gay friendly' usually encompasses both being friendly with people who are gay and being accepting of their lifestyle. (I'm using 'gay' to refer to people who not only deal with same-sex attraction [SSA], but also act on it.) I certainly hope that people here at BYU excel at the first part of that, but clearly most would not approve of a homosexual lifestyle.

I think most people who talk about "accepting" gay people do mean condoning their lifestyle--finding it "acceptable, forgivable, or harmless." (I decided to refresh my memory on the exact meaning of condone.) Clearly, by that definition the LDS church doesn't condone acting on SSA. We'd like to use our own definition of acceptance--being friendly with gay people, treating them with decency and respect, and in all other ways as children of God. Unfortunately, the very fact that we do not find the homosexual lifestyle acceptable, forgivable, or harmless means that most people will say that we don't accept gays.

[krebscout]

I had an actively gay friend in high school (he actually asked me a on a date once. I said yes but we never went. Shrug) and though he knew that I thought the active gay lifestyle was wrong in my own set of morals, I knew it was fine in his set of morals, and it was never an issue. Nor were there issues with my friends who smoked or drank, though they knew it was against my standards. Is that an okay definition of "gay friendly?"

But then prop 8 happened, and I was asked to be against something that was fine, even beautiful, in another person's set of morals, and that still doesn't sit completely right with me, but I'm trying to understand.