Dear Editor:
Re: “Religion, LGBT rights are both matters of faith,” Letters, March 3.
I support the school board’s efforts to promote understanding about sexual identity. I have lived with homosexuality my entire life. My late brother was in a long-term, committed same-sex relationship. Similarly, my sister, now aged 80, has been together with her lesbian friend longer than most straight people are married. They truly love each other.
My earliest memories are of my mother’s voice, “That boy should have been a girl!” That boy was my younger brother. From his earliest days he preferred dolls and dresses. For my siblings, sexual identity was fixed as much as their blue eyes and blond hair. For most, sexual identity is not a choice. Who would choose to go against one’s own nature?
I am a practising Christian and take the Bible seriously.
The Christian message is that every human is a treasure, made in God’s image, richly endowed but also deeply flawed, yet loved of God.
That puts us all on the same footing. Hence, Jesus says, “Let him who is without sin cast the first stone.”
The late George Grant, a Canadian philosopher of note, defined love as respect for otherness. Because Canada has been shaped by diverse peoples, from First Nations to many immigrant groups, respect for otherness is a human value deeply ingrained in Canadian culture.
The Asian immigrants of recent decades that have flooded into Richmond have been welcomed because of that Canadian value.
They would do well to embrace that value and make it their own, as many have.
Nick Loenen
Richmond
