""The gift of touch is an incredibly wonderful gift.  One of the reasons we are here is to touch each other physically as well as Spiritually, emotionally, and mentally.  Touch is not bad or shameful.  Our creator did not give us sensual and sexual sensations that feel so wonderful just to set us up to fail some perverted, sadistic life test.  Any concept of god that includes the belief that the flesh and the Spirit cannot be integrated, that we will be punished for honoring our powerful human desires and needs, is - in my belief - a sadly twisted, distorted, and false concept that is reversed to the Truth of a Loving God-Force. 

We need to strive for balance and integration in our relationships.  We need to touch in healthy, appropriate, emotionally honest ways - so that we can honor our human bodies and the gift that is physical touch. 

Making Love is a celebration and a way of honoring the Masculine and Feminine Energy of the Universe (and the masculine and feminine energy within no matter what genders are involved), a way of honoring its perfect interaction and harmony.  It is a blessed way of honoring the Creative Source."

"The Bible contains Truth, much of it symbolic or in parable form because most of the audience at the time it was written had very little sophistication or imagination.  They did not have the tools and the knowledge we have access to now.

So the Bible does contain Truth - it also contains a lot of distortion.  The Bible was translated many times.  It was translated by male Codependents.""

(All quotes in this color are from Codependence: The Dance of Wounded Souls)

Homosexuality - sexual and romantic attraction to beings of the same sex, the same gender - is a natural and normal part of the human experience. There has been a portion of the population, in every society that has existed on this planet, that was homosexual.  In most tribal societies, homosexuals were accorded honored positions of importance in the cultural scheme of tribal life.

The vast majority of individuals who are living a homosexual lifestyle are simply following the first real guideline of healthy behavior - to thine own Self be True.  A Gay man or Lesbian woman knows very early in life that they are different.  Environment does not produce homosexuality - it is something which is part of a person's DNA, part of their genetic programming, a perfect part of their Spiritual and Karmic path.

Those who would try to say that the Bible condemns homosexuality are not literally interpreting the Bible - they are imposing their bigotry upon the Bible.  The story that I have heard cited most often to support this bigotry is the story of Sodom and Gomorrah.  I did a quick search on Google for the word Sodom today, and about half the sites in the first 20 results were scholarly treatises from both Christian and Jewish scholars pointing out that the bible does not anywhere state that the sin of Sodom was homosexuality - that this is an interpretation imposed upon it.  Anyone who cites the story of Lot to back up their contention that homosexuality is an abomination is not only showing their ignorance of what the bible itself says, they are revealing themselves to be homophobic misogynists who could condone gang rape of innocent young girls and incest as preferable to homosexuality.

(I personally believe that interpreting the Bible as the literal word of God is a folly, and that the Old Testament with it's angry, judgmental, vengeful, punishing male version of God is at the root of a lot of the violence we see in the world today.  As I pointed out in the online book I wrote about the terrorist attack of September 11, 2001 Attack on America - A  Spiritual Healing Perspective the foundation of Christian, Jewish and Islamic religion is the Old Testament with it's warlike god.  In a recent chapter of my latest online book, Codependency Recovery: Wounded Souls Dancing in the Light Book 2: A Dysfunctional Relationship with Life Chapter 14: A Spiritual Manifesto, I spoke of the importance of having the discernment to separate the great Metaphysical power of the name, symbol, and message of Love taught by the Master Teacher Jesus Christ from both the Old Testament version of God and the twisted version of Christianity that evolved because governments - beginning with Rome - used Christianity as a tool for controlling the masses.  Anyone who cares to know about my beliefs in regard to the bible and sexuality can read my article Jesus & Mary Magdalene - Jesus, sexuality, & the Bible.)

And homosexuality is as much related to pedophilia as fish are to bicycles.  Homosexuals are not pedophiles - although some pedophiles may be homosexual, the two are not even closely synonymous.  Homosexuals are not out prowling, looking to recruit "innocent" victims - that is bull.  Those are the kind of ignorant, bigoted pronouncements made by small minded people whose beliefs do not support Love and ONENESS - whose beliefs are in fact reversed to the Truth of Love, because they promote separation and fear of differences.

As human beings we have much more in common - no matter what differences of race, color, creed, national heritage, language, or sexual orientation we may exhibit on the outside - than we have differences.  This is without even taking our True Spiritual Essence into account.  As human beings, we share the same basic emotional process and can watch a movie about someone who is completely different from us in terms of race, culture, language, etc. - and still resonate with them emotionally in a moment of tragedy, or triumph.  Someone from our home town, who we might pass on the street without a second thought in the normal course of daily life, becomes a kindred spirit when we meet them in a foreign country. Every human being on the planet is someone who we could feel connected to - feel on the same wave length with - in the right circumstances in relationship to some shared feeling, interest, and/or experience.  The basic emotional dynamics in romantic relationships are the same for heterosexuals and homosexuals - because we are the identical in our basic emotional process, in what we feel as emotional human beings.

The definitive factor for me in determining what is Truth - what is a natural and normal human behavior as opposed to a reaction/an effect of the emotionally repressive, Spiritually hostile, shame-based, Love mutilated environment that has been present on the planet - is:  does it support Love and connection between individuals, or does it support separation and fear.  Being True to Self and Loving another human being, no matter what gender they are, is aligned with Love and Truth.  Bigotry and hate are not aligned with Love.

I believe that there is a small percentage - perhaps 10-15% - of the people who are living a Gay lifestyle, who are doing so in reaction to childhood sexual abuse.  This is not bad or wrong, it just means - as I have said in other articles - that as long as we are reaction we are giving power to the past and not really seeing ourselves clearly.  The goal of healing is to see ourselves more clearly so that we can see our path more clearly.  That is what will allow us to be True to our Self.

There are also some people who are bisexual.  There are people who are transsexual and transgendered.  I do not know a whole lot about the later two - what I do know is that we are all ONE in the Spirit.  We are all children of God / Goddess, extensions of the Divine, part of The Great Spirit.  We are all experiencing being human.  We all deserve to be treated with respect and dignity.

The next article in this series is The Crippling Shame of Incest / Sexual Abuse