1. Lone_Wolf

    Lone_Wolf Banned

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    Need help about religion and the LGBT community

    Discussion in 'Research' started by Lone_Wolf, Apr 23, 2017.

    I'm not sure if this is even in the right section, but here's the deal. This is a pretty sensitive topic, but I need some help. I've been working on a story, and the main character comes from a very religious and homophobic family. Religion is not my strong-suit, and I have no idea how religious people against homosexuality act. I have a hard time writing dialogue in that type of nature and so on.

    Here's the complexity:

    The parents of my main character are Catholics and are against homosexuality. The MC's older brother was originally Catholic, but until he met his wife, he converted into Jehovah's Witness, which angered the mother, as she feared that her son was ditching everything that she had taught him and raised him to be regarding the family religion. My MC is the most different. My MC was Catholic, but something happened to her, and she became an Atheist. It's also implied that she's a Satanist, but she keeps this all a secret from her family. Worst still is that she's not straight either.

    So considering that the family is a mix of religions, I have no idea how to make them all interact. I'm especially ignorant about Jehovah's Witness. Can someone give me some insight on how to make this work? How can I make this all work when writing out religion (especially Catholic), the LGBT community and homophobia?
     
  2. truthbeckons

    truthbeckons Active Member

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    I'd worry that without a lot more research than a thread like this, you wouldn't be able to say much that sounds authentic. It's easy just to write straw bigots and not really understand people's beliefs or how they feel. There's nothing interesting about writing that's false or simplistic like that. Catholic ideas about sin, guilt, nature, the soul, and (in the best of cases) hating the "sin" but loving the sinner, are a whole can of worms, besides trying to understand their modern family dynamics.

    If you're really keen on it, I'd start by looking for autobiographies written by people who grew up rejected by/experiencing tension with their Catholic families. (I can't suggest any that I'm familiar with, but doubtless they're out there.) You could also look for books written by staunch Catholics about their religious beliefs and family values, to get an idea about the way they think and talk.

    But if you don't have any experience of knowing/talking to Catholics, and you don't feel like you've accumulated an understanding of them from other sources, I'd really reconsider tackling it in the absence of that experience. When you're writing about contemporary social issues, you can say so much more by delving into situations and groups that you're familiar with.

    There'll probably be someone else to make the "write what you don't know" case, so I'm just listing all the considerations on this side of the argument, since it's what my gut tells me: you need to do a lot of research for this to be worth the effort.
     
  3. BayView

    BayView Huh. Interesting. Contributor

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    I think you also need to decide whether your characters are truly objecting to the kid's homosexuality because of their religion or whether they're using their religion as an excuse for their homophobia.

    There are lots of Bible verses people can trot out to condemn homosexuals, but there are way more (at least in the New Testament) about not judging each other, loving each other, etc. Past popes have been pretty nasty about gay people (and lots of other groups) but the current pope is less of a dick. I agree with @truthbeckons that you need to do some research and figure out the religions, but you also need to do some thinking and figure out your characters and how those characters relate to their religions.


    Side note: I'm confused by your character who's either an atheist or a satanist. Those things really don't go together. If you don't believe in a deity, you don't believe in a deity. Having Satan as a deity is just as theist as having Yahweh as a deity....
     
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  4. izzybot

    izzybot (unspecified) Contributor

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    Actually:

     
  5. Lifeline

    Lifeline South. Supporter Contributor

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    From what I gather, this could be a heck of a story. If you also take @BayView 's considerations into account and focus on people's motivations for treating each other (which wouldn't ALL be based on their religion), I can see it being a really compelling story.

    As @truthbeckons pointed out, you need to do lots and lots of research. If you want to make this story good, you'll need a lot of time and (probably) lots of drafts and effort. Just using scene-blueprints won't work, or asking questions in the plot- and character-subforum 'Would my character do this or that?' Personally, I'm still researching more than a year after starting on my story, and I just about managed to write two chapters. Yet I don't regret a single minute I spent on it, because...

    ...if you do this I predict you'll grow as a person (as I have done). Is it worth it? You ask yourself.
     
  6. BayView

    BayView Huh. Interesting. Contributor

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    Wow. That's--well, I guess it's no more pathetic than actually worshipping Satan, but it certainly does seem like they're a little extra-hungry for attention and don't care whether it's negative or positive attention.

    But it does look like that's only one definition of the word. Other Satanists are actually worshipping Satan, according to Wikipedia.

    So, OP, another issue for you to work out. What does your character mean by Satanist?
     
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  7. truthbeckons

    truthbeckons Active Member

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    Actually that's the main association I have for the word "Satanism", since I've never heard someone say they literally believe in and worship Satan as a deity, but I've heard a few atheists who call themselves Satanists talk and write about that particular worldview/lifestyle. It's interesting, but that element of attention-seeking is kind of undeniable.
     
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  8. BayView

    BayView Huh. Interesting. Contributor

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    I guess I've never thought of Satanists as being people who actually, literally, truly believed in and worshipped Satan, but I tended to think that their attention-seeking at least took the form of genuinely pretending to worship Satan. Calling oneself a Satanist and not even taking the trouble to pretend to worship the Dark Lord? That's just lazy.
     
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  9. Lea`Brooks

    Lea`Brooks Contributor Contributor

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    There's a documentary called "For the Bible Tells Me So," about people with religious families coming out as gay and how their family either accepts or shuns them. It's not specifically about Catholics, but it'll give you a good insight into the minds of some religious people against gay people.

    @BayView I think the shock value is the point. If I remember correctly, modern Satanism started specifically to mock Christianity. According to Wikipedia:

    They embrace everything that Christianity says is wrong (Seven Deadly Sins, helping yourself invested of your neighbor) and reject everything Christianity says is right (deities, life after death, modesty, etc). It's a very strange but interesting religion.
     
    Last edited: Apr 23, 2017
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  10. Lew

    Lew Contributor Contributor

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    I think there are a great many stereotypes about religious people and homosexuality. As a an active Catholic, and also someone who had a brief experience with a family member involved in that, and also having had a pastor who had an openly gay son come to his ordination, I can say that most of what you think simply isn't true.

    It is perfectly possible to consider homosexualty to be a sin, and to consider that active encouragement of that lifestyle to be bad for both the people practicing it, and for society as a whole, without "hating" homosexuals, or being "homophobic", whatever that made-up word means (fear of the same? But you are not the same, you establish yourself as different). I have no issues with persons who choose that lifestyle, as long as they don't proselytize it, the same as I don't care for those who proselytize their religion. Nor do I feel the need to proselytize the benefits of heterosexuality, and seek to convert all who disagree. There are a wide range of sins, and I feel sorry for those who choose that path, but I don't consider it a major sin such as murder. If I am asked to accept it as perfectly normal alternative behavior, I will refuse, because I don't believe (based on reason, not on faith) that it is. But I do so without rejecting that person, who is after all, a child of God, and also a flawed, sinful human being... just as I am, just as we all are.

    I expect to hear a lot of angry posts from those who disagree, on this, so I am not going to continue this thread in the interest of civility.
     
  11. BayView

    BayView Huh. Interesting. Contributor

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    I think this is totally true. There are lots of good Christians who follow the teachings of love and non-judgement. There are lots of practicing Christians who are living healthy, happy lives as gay people. There's no inherent conflict between Christianity and being gay. But there are a lot of homophobic people who use religion as an excuse for their homophobia, and there are also, I think, some Christians who truly and genuinely believe that homesexuality is a terrible sin. That said...

    Has this ever actually been a thing? Someone trying to convert others to the gay "lifestyle"? What is the gay lifestyle, exactly? Do you just mean having gay sex? Does that count as a "lifestyle" now? And if so... what does this look like? When a straight person comes on to someone, are they trying to proselytize the straight lifestyle?

    Has anyone ever tried to convert you to the wonderful gay life?

    This feels like one of those made-up fears, to me, but if you have evidence to contradict that, I'd be willing to hear it.

    You're not going to continue in the interests of civility, or you're not going to continue because you don't really want to engage with the possibilities and would rather just spout your existing prejudices and not hear anything to contradict them?
     
    Last edited: Apr 23, 2017
  12. Laurin Kelly

    Laurin Kelly Contributor Contributor

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    Ding ding ding! I think we have a winner.

    Back on topic, I have to agree that without a deeper understanding of these religions you're trying to include, it's going to be very tough to pull off. I don't think you can just look at how/if their dogma and leadership views homosexuality; there is a lot more to religion than that, and every tenet an individual follow are or doesn't follow is going to inform their characterization. I worked for a woman who was a Jehovas Witness for 5 years; their beliefs and the rules they had to follow were very strict and extensive, and it affected many ways in which she interacted with others in our workplace and elsewhere.
     
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  13. Wreybies

    Wreybies Thrice Retired Supporter Contributor

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    Without wading too deeply into whatever has been said before in this thread....

    Here's my take, as a gay person as regards writing this:

    As I am sure others have already mentioned, there is no one way this is going to go. So many other factors are going to come into play. But, using what you already gave in the OP, I would say that your parents have to be multifaceted. They have their religious selves, and they have their parental selves. And that parental self is a very powerful dynamic. Very.

    My example:

    If I were to post a thread similar to yours asking/describing the following: The parents are very traditional Latinos, and both of them are currently active duty military personnel when they find out their son is gay. How do think that would go?

    I can tell you that many members here (anywhere!) are going to proffer some pretty horrible scenarios of rejection and family strife and all the preconceptions anyone might have if one only has a passing knowledge of what "traditional Latino" and "active duty military" means in the grand scheme of things.

    Well, guess what: Nothing horrible happened. I was braced for the worst and it never materialized. It just didn't. There was a week's worth of discomfort and everyone feeling out of sorts and then it just got filed away and nothing terrible happened. Nothing. Later on in life I discovered that even that week's worth of discomfort might have been avoided but for the simple fact that my parents didn't like the guy I appeared to be dating. They just didn't like him. And in retrospect, I can see why. Classic broken/bad-boy, who just happened to be easy on the eye.

    It almost feels like a let-down, right? Well, that's my actual story. That's what really happened. Pretty much nothing. They already new. I wasn't telling them anything new. I was just pointing out the elephant in the room. That's all. Parents aren't stupid, much as we all think they are when we're in that slice of life. They new. It was just a confirmation, and not even really that because all the evidence was already pointing that way.

    Whodathunk that my parents would go about it logically? Certainly not me in those moments of life. I didn't credit their military training for giving them a fact-based way of looking at things. I certainly didn't credit the strength of that "traditional Latino" background to make them want to protect me, not hurt me.

    Do you see what I'm saying? The surface description of the players in play and the dynamics in play probably would not lead a person to the actual conclusion that played out. That's simply because my parents are people like anyone else and are much more than the sum of the things I described.

    Now, if I were to write that story, I might start out with exactly the description I gave because at the time that's what I thought was going to guide the situation down a very rocky path. The rest of the story would be an illumination as to why that path was not the own that ended up happening.

    My point to all this is that the way this plays out is literally the meat of your story. You have to decide how it plays out. You have to give it reason. You have to give it purpose. You have to have an idea of the why of it. If you let someone tell you "It's totally going to play out like this...", then you've given over the writing of your story to someone else.
     
  14. Wreybies

    Wreybies Thrice Retired Supporter Contributor

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    This right here.

    When you start writing this story, you need to think about who, for example, the mother is. Why she is. What is her purpose in your story? What are you trying to say through her? You can't just check off some boxes marked "Catholic Woman", wind her up, and have her start regurgitating this limited set of checked boxes.

    In other words, why would you let us tell you who she is? I get that you're trying to get information to start your construction of these people, and maybe it's just the way I personally go about writing stories and creating characters, but my characters always have a why. They exist for a reason. My headstrong mother is a headstrong mother because that's who she needs to be in my story. That's her roll. Her sheltered son is a sheltered son for a reason. The handsome but rather oblivious guy that the sheltered son falls in love with is handsome and oblivious for a reason.

    So, let me back up a step and ask you a different question in the hopes of helping you: Why are you writing this story? What is the underlying drive? Understanding that we usually don't want to enter into realms of polemic, we still have a reason that drives us to write the stories we write. What's yours in this instance?
     
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  15. ChickenFreak

    ChickenFreak Contributor Contributor

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    Toaster ovens.

     
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  16. Lone_Wolf

    Lone_Wolf Banned

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    Those who mentioned the possibility of me scrapping this idea, I find it very important in the story. This story is inspired by a true story that I... witnessed, per se. This family is based on a real family, and religion (as well as other heavy-duty topics) play an important role. Almost all of the characters have important, roles, especially the mother. If the mother weren't to be in my story, then my story would ultimately fall apart.
     
  17. Laurin Kelly

    Laurin Kelly Contributor Contributor

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    Exactly. One of my MC's mother in UTK is a is traditional and observant in the Jewish faith, but when her son Nate comes out to her she's 100% supportive. She's a single mom (widowed) who loves her son more than anything, and there's no way she would let her religion or anything else drive any kind of a wedge between them. I have a scene where Nate tells the story of coming out to his mom before moving from his small town to a big city that illustrates this:

    "So one night when Mom was warning me for the millionth time about keeping my apartment door locked, and carrying my wallet in my front pocket so it wouldn't get stolen, I just stopped her and said, 'Mom, I'm gay.'."

    "What did she say?" asked Carmen.

    "There was a lot of stammering," said Nate, smiling faintly at the memory. "I don't think she knew quite how to respond to her twenty-two-year-old son coming out to her on a Tuesday night over meatloaf dinner. I asked her if she still loved me, and that snapped her out of it. Then she was all, 'Of course I still love you, Nathan! You're my son! And if anyone else in the family has a problem with it, I'll be telling them what's the what!'"

    Carmen laughed at the exaggerated waving hands and thick Midwestern accent Nate had put on to imitate his mother, while Zachary smiled amusedly. Nate gratefully felt his concern about Zachary's acceptance fade.

    Nate added, "By the end of the meal, she was telling me about how there was some cousin in the Bronstein family down the street who was gay, and that maybe he could visit next time I came back to town, to see if the two of us might hit it off. Once my mother started trying to hook me up with nice Jewish boys, I knew we were going to be okay."
     
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  18. Wreybies

    Wreybies Thrice Retired Supporter Contributor

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    Yep, yep, yep.

    In my WIP, Brenn's gayness is of little concern to Lady Petla, his mother. What Lady Petla wants, Lady Petla gets. If this meant Brenn marrying an appropriate woman and having his male lovers on the side, to Lady Petla that's just the weak vagaries of men. Male lovers, female lovers, it's all the same as long as desirable grandchildren are forthcoming. When Brenn shows up with Tevin, gifted with rare meta-talents, Lady Petla doesn't see her son's gay lover; she sees immense opportunity. Lady Petla herself begins to court Tevin in the ways of any mother who sees a desirable prospective match for her child. In her mind, Tevin will marry Taia, Brenn's sister, and if Brenn and Tevin wish to continue their bedroom rendezvous, well, again, the weak vagaries of men. So long as desirable grandchildren with meta-talents are in the future.

    Lady Petla is a consummate chess player. That is the why of her, and it gives sound reason to eschew any sort of inconvenient judgement on her part in favor of what will further the family's status.
     
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  19. ChickenFreak

    ChickenFreak Contributor Contributor

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    I would start with, as suggested, reading biographies of people with similar issues. And I think that you also need to read books about each religion, probably a couple--I'm thinking one more conservative and one less conservative--for each one.

    I think that your research for this is going to involve reading at least the equivalent of several books. Is that an investment you want to make? If it is, is it an investment that you want to make right now, or would it make sense to line up five or ten books that you'll read over the next couple of years, and meanwhile work on something else?
     
  20. Wreybies

    Wreybies Thrice Retired Supporter Contributor

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    I certainly do not think you should just scrap it. But, as mentioned, without some research, or, if the possibility exists, gathering the information directly from the players in question, it might be hard to reverse engineer the story from the end results you know from experience to the reasons these end results played out. Here is where you are going to perhaps have to fictionalize - as nearly always happens in portrayals of true events. Sometimes we have the data on hand, but it lacks that spice needed to make for a good story. Sometimes the data is lost to us because it happened too far in the past. Sometimes we are lucky enough to have the players on hand, but we have to deal with the confusion of emic data, which is prone to social lying and idealizing to paint ourselves in the best light possible.
     
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  21. Lone_Wolf

    Lone_Wolf Banned

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    I definitely will read a few biographies to gain more insight. I've been gathering what I can, from religious knowledge to interviewing people from the LGBT community
     
  22. Hmt321

    Hmt321 New Member

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    In my experience people are typically much more tolerant than given credit for, and loyalties will often favor personal relationships rather than religious doctrine.

    I know a lady who's son came out of the closet years ago. Southern Baptist, pillar of the church, ultra conservative, from rural town in Alabama. When her son told her he was gay, nothing changed. No one made a big deal out of it, as it should be.
     
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  23. Simpson17866

    Simpson17866 Contributor Contributor

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    Nice. I wish everybody had your experience.
     
  24. Mckk

    Mckk Member Supporter Contributor

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    You've got me interested whether Brenn and Tevin stand the test and how Lady Petla reacts when (I'm assuming) Tevin does not marry Taia.
     
  25. Mckk

    Mckk Member Supporter Contributor

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    Maybe this book might help? This book called Torn, written by Justin Lee, the Gay Christian Network founder, and a Southern Baptist himself and the book details his experience when he realised he was gay. It follows what he used to believe and his attitude towards gay people, his realisation and coming to terms with that, his Christian community's reaction to this, and finally how he reconciles his sexual orientation with the Bible.

    Not quite Catholic but may give you good insight.

    Also important to note is that: just because a Christian believe gay sex is a sin does not mean they are homophobic. There's a difference between thinking something is wrong and actually hating the person for it.

    It's also important to remember what kind of person your characters are. Religious doctrine will shape them, but what that person's core values are will also have an impact. Before I became sort of "on the fence" about the whole gay thing (I'm a Christian, btw), I remember discussions about attending a child's gay wedding. Just hypothetically. And all this talk of "I love you but I don't support what you're doing" stuff, and there I was thinking, "But how does that show you unconditionally love your child if you refuse to attend their wedding?" My grandmother did not attend my mum's wedding - and she remembers it to this day. My husband's mother did attend the wedding, although she very nearly didn't and initially said she would not - the fact that she did, in the end, was important. She still hated me to my core, but she did come. And I believe that was hugely important to my husband. So how could I not attend my child's wedding and still say "I love you"? In the end, my reasoning was that you couldn't, not without adding the term "conditionally". If I really didn't support it, I don't think by my attendance my child would mistake my presence as a complete change of mind.

    In the end, even back when I thought it was a sin, I decided I would go. I can't not. (my daughter is only 21 months old now, so it's all just hypothetical right now lol) But I think my decision has a lot to do with the kind of person I am - which is that you must love your child without condition. That love forgives and is gracious. That a person's value is beyond measure and relationships are the most important thing in this life. I believe this. So I would go to a wedding I do not support, because I know I must, for my child's sake.

    So... what kind of people are your characters? What's important to them? Why do they believe what they believe? What is love to them and how should this love be expressed? When would this love be withdrawn, if ever, on what conditions?
     

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