If only the entire world saw things the way we do

Usually, I wouldn't post a whole article word for word without adding my two cents but I thought that this just says everything.

Gay or straight, it's love and commitment that count
By Kim Clark

My wife and I took our lesbian daughter to see "Brokeback Mountain" Friday night. Sorry to disappoint the moral purists, but we had a wonderful evening.

A poignantly moving but genuinely sad story of two men who, by following society's advice, did what was, for them, unnatural. Their wives were "sexy" enough, that was not the problem. The problem was that they pursued a path that was at variance with their natural order.

With predictable certainty, these men soon discovered that society's idea of "normal" was, for them, abnormal. (You can walk an errant path for only so long - nature has a way of re-establishing homeostasis.)

While I do not comprehend same-sex attraction, I do know something of unconditional love. So do my children, two of whom are gay. Embracing each other's differences is a principal reason love and acceptance permeate our home. Harmony amid diversity - imagine that!

For anyone to see only "sex" in homosexuality is to evidence a shamefully ametropic understanding of an important subject. Yes, these cowboys were sexually active, but the orgasmic realm is not where one finds the soul. With that in mind, their love and commitment is no different than the heterosexual love and commitment I have for my wife. The only difference, perhaps, is that society voiced no objections when 30 years ago we agreed to marry.

On March 24, 2004, molecular biologist William Bradshaw of Brigham Young University announced that "Biology absolutely has a role in causing homosexuality." Bradshaw's research showed what many of his gay students had been telling him all along: "Homosexuality is not a lifestyle [we] chose."

Furthermore, "therapy, psychoanalysis, hypnosis . . . and religious group therapy" had very little lasting impact in "correcting" their behavior. The good professor concluded that "it is virtually impossible for these people to change their orientation."

In other words, to expect them to change is as unnatural and unrealistic as it is insensitive and unkind. But the implications of his research are staggering. To accept Bradshaw's findings would require that we see diverse sexual orientation as something natural after all! And if natural, then nature's architect is "Himself" accepting of such diversity.

Finally, to Larry Miller: Larry, if and when the day arrives (if it has not already) that someone close to you announces their homosexuality, instead of expressing contempt, I invite you to watch with them "Brokeback Mountain." I am certain that those same tears your big heart is known to shed for the likes of Stockton, Malone, and the Sloans will again find their way to the surface.

But even more rewarding, Larry, will be the transcendent moment when cold judgment gives way to unconditional love.
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Kim Clark is an optometric physician with private practices in Holladay and Sandy. He and wife, Cindy, are the parents of "four wonderful people."