if you are or have been a student at sewanee, you know that we love panel discussions. i enjoy them, yes. i like to be all academic, a scholar might you...but. there are some issues in which is is nearly impossible to separate the personal from the political.

today we had a panel discussion on "the ethical issues of homosexuality." the panel was composed of male, heterosexual professors. i have trouble thinking that one person left the discussion with altered views on the ethics of homosexuality. there was no personal account of what it is like to be homosexual. therefore, no one was moved to reconsider his/her notions. homosexuality was this looming idea that was addressed as if it was a blanket covering the room. i dare to say that it was suffocating the room. everyone seemed more and more anxious as the panel progressed.

the pervasiveness of homophobia was never truly realized.

when i was 15 years old i woke up one morning fully aware that my first lesbian kiss was going to happen that night. i thought to myself:

"i can't kiss her. i can't kiss this girl that i love so dearly."

why couldn't i kiss her? isn't it a normal desire--to physically show someone how much you care for them?

"if i kiss her, i will have to live everyday of the rest of my life knowing that i am going to hell"

"do i really want to screw this up?"

"i could wake up tomorrow and decide that i don't want to be gay."

"and...i will have messed it up. i will have messed up my chances of getting into heaven."

...i kissed the girl that night. and it was amazing. i decided that if hell was filled with girls that liked to kiss girls then that was where i wanted to be.

now, it is important to realize that my community's views on homosexuality catalyzed these thoughts.

i kissed a girl believing that it would cause my eternity to be spent in hell. this is the pervasiveness of homophobia. this is the pervasiveness of the institution that we call religion.

gene robinson's approval as a bishop in the episcopalian church gives me hope that i can one day resort back to the religion that i had to abandon a few years ago.

i wish that i could have shared my story with the people present at the panel discussion.

notions would have been reconsidered. minds would have been influenced.