A Flat Nose

“Gay love is a form of hatred.”

Wait, what?

Earlier today, I was explaining to a friend about the short text Plato’s Symposium, which I found stuffed away in a bookshelf at home. I decided to take a quick read through, and part of the dialogue claimed that homosexual relationships tend to embody love in its purest form. But I guess my friend had a different take on the subject.

And so I asked him why he feels that homosexuality denotes hate. Being a devout Christian, his explanation was that the Bible condemns such acts. He added that, unlike the Old Testament and its horde of contemporarily bizarre rules, the disapproval of gays can be found in the New Testament, a proclaimed benchmark for morality. Therefore, he was not just some religious fanatic who followed each law within the holy literature.

On a side note, my friend made a good point about the Old Testament. Did you know that, in the book of Leviticus, one law specifically prohibits people with flat noses from visiting an altar of God?

Soon, my curiosity got the better of me and I began bombarding my friend with questions.

Why should homosexuality be considered immoral?

“Well, I could use practical reasons, like how we were meant to reproduce. But, bottom line is I sincerely believe it is wrong.”

What makes it wrong?

“Why is stealing wrong? Or incest? Because there is a higher power and a higher moral code.”

But how do you differentiate between what a higher power states and what is only claimed by man?

By this point in our conversation, I was slowly becoming the nagging five-year-old who responds to all statements with an innocent “why?” It didn’t help that my friend’s retorts were becoming more and more abstract.

“What is right and what is wrong? Can you really justify morality?”

But what makes YOU believe in something?

“Oh, in that case, it’s faith.”

I guess this is the key difference between our views on the idea of faith. To my friend, faith is used to validate his devotion to the values of God. As for myself, I believe in having values found through experiences and pray for faith in upholding them.

Which approach is the right one, and how could you ever explain such an answer? That, I will never know.

But I’m pretty sure my nose is too flat for God’s altar.