Gay-dar

On Thursday, my teacher, Dell, took one of my classmates and I to Home Depot to get supplies for a group project. As we were getting into his Ford Ranger, I said that my aunt used to have the same truck. Dell immediately responded to this with the question, “Is your aunt a lesbian?”

I was offended by this question, because he was making a presumption about my aunt’s sexuality, a very personal issue that is tied very closely to one’s identity, based solely on the fact that she had once owned a truck. Regardless of how a person may feel regarding the morality of alternative lifestyles, I feel that it is wrong to assume things about a person’s sexuality because of their preferences in other areas of life.

I believe that “gay-dar” is terrible thing that can actually be hurtful to the people whose sexuality one is attempting to discern from their appearance. I, for one, could tell several stories about people who were deeply wounded by other people who assumed things about their sexual orientation due to their “butch” or “feminine” tendencies, and what makes this even worse is that the people who wounded them actually thought that they were being sensitive by supporting the person’s perceived lifestyle. I find this to be infuriating.

I think that Christians should be especially aware of the hurtful nature of “gay-dar,” as when we do this, we are essentially assigning that person sin. Not only are we projecting that onto that person, but we are sinning ourselves by judging them.

Therefore, when I meet a new person, I assume them to be a monogamous heterosexual, not only for the reasons above, but also because, the last I had heard, only about 11% of the world’s population practice homo- or by- sexuality. However, if it does come out that they are in fact in an alternative lifestyle, I think no differently of them. I have a problem with homosexuality, not homosexuals. Jesus loves homosexuals so much that He died for them. Yes, I do believe that homosexuality is a sin (see 1 Cor. 6:9), but so is lying (see 1 Peter 3:10).