Mr. Flaherty is my hero. Not for his making of the Narnia films, though I appreciate what he’s doing there. But what I really love is the opinion piece I just read in the Wall Street Journal.

Speaking about Joy Behar saying CS Lewis writes children’s books, Flaherty says:

Mrs. Palin is on the right track by giving C.S. Lewis a prominent place on her reading list. Yet Ms. Behar and other Palin critics have dismissed Lewis’s work, forgetting that Lewis was a medieval and renaissance scholar at Oxford and the author of several brilliant Christian apologetics. Ms. Behar’s dismissal of children’s books as less than important makes her a modern-day Eustace, the type of bully who mocks readers of fairy tales as simpletons.

If I were a dufflepud I’d be telling Flaherty, “Yes, chief, you got that right. You said that one perfectly, chief. No one can say this better than you have.”

In my last post regarding homosexuality and children’s books, I said I’d look at The God Box, by Alex Sanchez. I’ve been procrastinating because it’s such a huge job. He took a whole novel to dismantle historic Christianity’s understanding of certain passages of scripture. How do I disagree with the man in a couple of short blog posts? And how do I do that with grace and without resorting to inflammatory arguments?

But as much as I loved Alex’s gay boy characters, and I really did love them, I have to disagree with the man’s conclusions.

First I’d like to give the disclaimer. I’m a Christian who holds to the traditional understanding of the passages in scripture that deal with sexual sin. I believe that all sex outside of marriage between one man and one woman is sinful.

I also have gay and lesbian friends who would say I’m no bigot. I don’t think I’m better than others. I don’t have a problem eating with, working with, or laughing with homosexuals. I believe homosexuals are like everyone else. They are not sub-human. Abuse of gays, be it verbal or physical, is never justified. I also believe the same about pedophiles and people into bestiality, though. I don’t see homosexuality, heterosexual shacking-up, pedophilia, or zoophilia as different sins. I lump them all into the category of sexual sin. When I’ve told homosexuals this in the past, they have often reacted in anger. Men having sex with other men is nothing like men having sex with children or animals, they say. Many of the homosexuals I’ve spoken with have seen homosexuals and heterosexuals as saints and have seen pedophiles and zoophiles as sinners.

I have spent time interacting on discussion boards with young men who are sexually attracted to boys. I have read up on zoophiles and listened to them speak. I can’t hate them. I can’t say they should be dragged behind a truck until dead. I can’t say they are sub-human sickos. I can’t see that they are any different than the rest of us—sinners in need of salvation.

What I could never understand is why such statements—one sexual sin is not better than another sexual sin—would make homosexual people defensive and angry while heterosexual sinners blow me off as an idiot. My brother, when he shacked up with his first woman, painted a sign that said “God bless this den of iniquity” and hung it in his living room. He was thumbing his nose at our mother, who had told him he was living in a den of iniquity, and at our mother’s God. He didn’t bother trying to convince Mom that he wasn’t sinning. He just said, “I don’t care what you think and I don’t care what God thinks.”

But in my limited experience with homosexuals, it seems that they do care. They care very much. They want Christians to stop saying that homosexual acts are sinful even as they retain the right to claim that pedophilia and zoophilia are not so much sexual orientations as immoral acts.

My experience is limited, so maybe I’m wrong. I’m just putting this out there to give you a picture of my mindset when I opened The God Box.

So on, now, to my thoughts on the book.

In my last post I said:

I’m seriously trying to understand why the message that gays don’t choose and can’t change would be true and why it seems to be so important to the gay community.

This is how the argument in The God Box unfolds. Your desire for sex with same-sex partners is who you are. You cannot change. Gays who try to change their orientation are unhappy. The people who want you to change are mean. You are feeling bad because you are fighting your natural inclination and trying to please others. When you decide to embrace who you are, instead of fighting it, you will be happy. Be true to yourself.

Yes, be true to yourself is of utmost importance to Mr. Sanchez, and he preaches it with all the zeal of the emergent church folks in search of authenticity in an world full of plastic hypocrites.

On page 171 Paul’s grandmother says to him:

“Pablito, the Bible was meant to be a bridge, not a wedge.” Abuelita nodded her head at me. “It’s the greatest love story ever told, about God’s enduring and unconditional love for his creation—love beyond all reason. To understand it, you have to read it with love as the standard. Love God. Love your neighbor. Love yourself. Always remember that.”

Love yourself is the message of The God Box. Mr. Sanchez tacks it on as a third great commandment every time he mentions the first two, if I remember correctly. The book is not about loving God or loving others. Those are thrown in, but the central message is meant to convince homosexual teens that there is nothing wrong with them. They are not beyond God’s love. They are not monsters in need of rebirth. They are not dirty and in need of cleansing. A loving God made them this way and they are to embrace their homosexuality and love themselves.

I’m so glad I read this book because I did love the boys in the book and my heart ached for them. Mr. Sanchez clearly showed me that there is a great tension and conflict in the breast of the homosexual teen. He feels that he was made this way, and he feels that he has to hide the way he was made, and he feels that as long as he hides he’s playing the hypocrite.

And if there are any homosexuals teens reading I’d like to affirm some of what Mr. Sanchez was, obviously with the best of intentions, trying to get across. You are not different from anyone else. The Bible says, “No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man.” (1 Cor. 1-:13) It also says that Jesus was tempted in every way as we are, and yet was without sin. (Hebrews 4:15) Temptation is not sin. You are not some kind of monster if you want to have sex with same-sex partners (or with animals or with children, for that matter). You are not unlovable and ugly and worthless.

And yet, I don’t believe that Mr. Sanchez is right about why the Bible was written or what it says about homosexuality.

More on that next time.

So…going forward with the “homosexuality in children’s books” discussion that I started here and continued here….

I don’t believe we should hang suicide on just one cause. Many children are bullied horribly and they don’t commit suicide. Others are never bullied and they do commit suicide. I’m not saying that bullying isn’t a big deal. I’m not saying that bullying doesn’t push kids over the edge. I’m just saying that bullying is only one factor in a complex world. We like to have our bad guys tied up in neat packages. We like to think we know who to blame so we can keep this from happening again.

But it seems to me that the main culprit in a suicide is a loss of hope. A person gives up hope for a happy, healthy life.

What causes a person to give up hope?

I’ve listened to several videos made for the “it gets better” campaign, and I’ve read some books and websites, and one thing I keep hearing over and over and over is “Gay people have no choice. If you are attracted to same-sex partners, you can NEVER change.”

Depending on what you want to do with your life, that can be a pretty harsh message to give a kid. That message, if given to a kid who wants to marry an opposite sex person, may be devastating.

I don’t see why we need to tell children they can’t choose. I’ve known women who have had lesbian affairs after divorce and then gone back to men. I’ve known men who have had homosexual affairs in prison and gone back to women when they’ve gotten out. I’ve known men and women who have grown up with lustful thoughts for same-sex partners and who have married opposite-sex partners and had children and lived happy lives.

It looks to me as if human sexuality is a fluid thing. Heterosexuals can, obviously, choose same-sex activity when they want. Why wouldn’t homosexuals be able to choose opposite-sex activity if they wanted? Why is it necessary to tell children they cannot choose their sexual partners from members of the opposite sex?

I wonder if we ought to tell young people who think they might be gay that they can choose to be whatever they want to be. If they want to live with a same-sex partner there are many loving, accepting people in the world who will befriend and support them. But if they want to live with an opposite-sex partner, they can do that, too. Many do choose that, and live happily.

Why should we limit people at such a young age? I’m not trying to be rude and judgmental. I’m seriously trying to understand why the message that gays don’t choose and can’t change would be true and why it seems to be so important to the gay community.

If I seem to have traveled far from talking about writing and children’s books, I will bring it back there the next time I post on this topic. I hope to review The God Box, by Alex Sanchez. His book gives one answer to my question, that I’d like to look at.

A couple of weeks ago on my children’s writing email loops and in the kidlitosphere we were urged to wear purple to honor the young homosexual people who killed themselves recently after being bullied. This is not about characters in children’s books but it is an issue that is important to children’s book writers. We love teens. That’s why we write for them. If they are killing themselves, it hurts us. We want to help them.

So there was a campaign to wear purple and to make videos telling the kids that things will get better. I join with the nation in grieving over those young lives lost. But grieving and honoring are two different things.

I have lost friends and relatives to suicide. I know how painful it is. I know that people who kill themselves are loved and missed. I know they were talented and thoughtful and bright and worthy of love. I know that they have done many honorable things in their lives.

Still, I think to call the nation to honor people who have committed suicide as if they are some kind of martyrs in the war against bullying is the wrong thing to do. To kill yourself is not honorable. It is not courageous.

I don’t mean to blame these poor young people or stand in judgement on them. If I had been bullied the way they were, I may have killed myself, too. I’m not saying I could have done better. I’m not saying their suffering wasn’t awful or that they should have been able to bear up under it. I am only saying we should not honor someone who takes his own life as if he is a fallen hero. Suicide is not heroic. It’s horrible. It’s hopeless.

Even if I didn’t believe we have a Creator who alone has the right to number our days, I don’t think I’d want to honor suicide victims. Suicide shouldn’t be glamorized. I wonder if all the love poured out over those young men in the media will encourage other confused, hurting boys, who are hungering for love and acceptance, to kill themselves.

Whether it will or not, I can’t say, but either way, it doesn’t change my feelings. I want to show sympathy to the families and I want to express hatred for bullying. I will pray for the families and for the nation. But I can’t honor suicide victims, no matter how humiliated or scarred they were.

I do sympathize and weep, though. I hate to have people think that because I didn’t wear purple, that means I don’t care about children killing themselves. If the call had been for us to wear purple to tell the world that we find suicide to be an unacceptable way to try to solve problems, or if we were wearing purple to say that we would no longer tolerate bullies, I could have joined in.

So I wonder if we can’t close the gap between warring sides by using language that we all can embrace. Some won’t be able to pray for the families with me. I am not able to honor the victims with others. But we can all sympathize, can’t we? People on both sides of the “is homosexuality a sin, or are people who say that just homophobic bigots?” question can weep for the young people who died and for their families. Next time (if there is a next time) maybe we can have a campaign to wear purple to show our sorrow for the injured and our hatred of bullying.

Is that possible?

Is it just me or is this issue heating up?

I have some strong opinions about the roles of homosexuals in children’s books. I’ve kept those opinions to myself because to discuss something that people feel passionately about, something that so deeply affects their lives, takes a lot of time.

It’s no good to shout out, “Gays are going to hell.” Or, “Homophobic bigots should all die.” That kind of thoughtless bludgeoning, coming from both sides, is a waste of everyone’s time. We need to stop with the slogans hurled from behind the protection of nameless, faceless, internet personae. They only serve to inflame others and make matters worse.

So…since I’m convinced that the people hurling the hate-speech on both sides of the issue need to be urged to stop spewing and to instead do the hard work of thinking through issues and discussing them calmly, I guess I should take the time to discuss the issue of homosexuality in children’s literature. It’s worth discussing. It’s a polarizing issue. The two sides should search for some understanding of one another and some compassion.

I’ll start with what has gotten me thinking along these lines.

Recently on a children’s writing email loop we were urged to wear purple in honor of the homosexuals who had killed themselves after being bullied. I kept hearing that we should honor young people who had committed suicide.

This was still on my mind when I made a trip to a local bookstore. Browsing in the YA section I came across The God Box, by Alex Sanchez. I decided I needed to read it to try to understand where the kids in our youth group at church were getting some of their ideas about what God thought of homosexuality.

A week or so later, Noël, a children’s librarian/blogger I have followed and enjoyed for years posted about her disappointment with an author purposely putting a two-mother family into one of her books because she liked to think “that children’s books are a wonderful way to begin the process of educating people about how varied human experience is, and about how all of it, all of it, is normal.” Noël said she thinks that by painting homosexual couples as normal, the author was showing “elementary-age readers that Christian beliefs are hateful and silly.”

And then several days ago, the ALA announced their new Stonewall Children’s and Young Adult Literature Award, which will be given to English-language works for children and teens of exceptional merit relating to the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered experience. The comments on Yahoo’s article about the award are unhelpful. At least the hundred I read before giving up were nothing but garbage.

I have some things to say about all of this. I have reactions to each of the above items. I hope to talk about those reactions pretty soon. For now, I urge you to go and read some of these things and think about them yourselves. Think about whether homosexual characters in children’s books are good, bad, or neutral. Or are they sometimes good, sometimes bad, and sometimes neutral? Is it possible for any character in a book to be neutral? Or do all characters move the reader toward being a better person or a worse person? I think this is not only fascinating to think about, but also I think it’s something that all readers and writers need to think about. How do we writers want to move our readers? How is the author of the book I’m reading trying to move me?

Other posts on this topic:

• Honoring Suicide Victims
• Choosing and Changing
• The God Box: Part One
• Writing About Characters Who Don’t Share Your Beliefs
• How Should We Then Respond?