Blog 1/Part III

Tal Como Somos
We learned a bit about the religious conflict experienced by at least one of the men featured in Tal Como Somos. Consider the following:

1) Provide your insight on how/why an individual would choose to practice a faith that was not accepting of their sexuality.

I believe that what is convoluted about the statement above is that it is not the faith that is not accepting of their sexuality but the other people practicing it. Specifically for the situations featured in the Tal Como Somos, it was a man who was gay and practiced Catholicism. The church in this case was the barrier to the man’s feelings of acceptance amongst his peers who practiced the same faith. A majority of these individuals are heterosexual and the church views marriage as one of the holy sacraments, funny how the church and marriage are institutional and social constructs created by the majority population supporting each. A man’s sexuality is not questioned by a faith such as Catholicism but of the people that make up the church supporting the faith. It is institutionalized that marriage is illegal for homosexual couples and this prevents them from completing all of their sacraments, their right to practice a religion freely from the government. This basic right to practice religion freely as one pleases is a basic right of every American no matter sexual orientation and is a major reason why this country was formed.

With that being said, an individual can choose their faith based on their beliefs and how those beliefs parallel with the faith of their choosing. Faith should not be a process by which participants adhere to a set of standards created by a majority population practicing the faith at the current time. It should be the individual’s pursuit of spiritual fulfillment by which others share common beliefs that are not skewed by social norms and institution. Where your spirituality lies is not supposed to be determined by the others around you but by your choice to pursue what you believe. The man’s choice to practice a faith where a majority of people practicing the faith are against homosexuality is a barrier to feeling accepted in the faith community, but it should not stop the man’s belief in his faith. Your faith does not judge you, the people around you do. Becoming at peace with your faith is a major step in accepting who you are and is hallmark for the LGBTQQI community.

2) How might this struggle be different or similar to others who feel conflicted about their religious faith?

In the case that an individual is conflicted about which religious faith they would like to pursue the situation can be different. For example, if I was a member of the LGBTQQI community an unsure of which faith to pursue I would be looking for a place that is accepting of who I am and carries with it the same beliefs/ideals. I would dissuade from approaching religious communities if they had a stigma against a major attribute in my life, such as my sexuality. Thus, I might decide a faith is right for me based on the community that supports it and not the actual practices of the faith. I would be finding a social club and not a faith to be apart of. Not all faiths require that individual members be present in an institution created by the majority participants. The crux of the struggle would be finding a faith that one feels comfortable with and not stigmatized against in practicing.

3) How might religion intersect with health issues of the LGBT community?

An obvious health issue with the LBGT community would be HIV/AIDS and this issue would intersect any faith that would not believe in the western practice of medicine to aid individuals with the health issue. For example, members of the Jehovah Witness faith can not practice blood transfusions and any real disturbances of the bloodstream, which creates an obvious intersecting conflict of religion and the community’s health issue. Another example would be if a lesbian couple wanted a child by means of in vitro fertilization and the religion would not approve of the child based on the inability of the couple to marry. The basis is that if a member of a minority community, such as the LGBT, experiences an adverse health effect that is stigmatized to the minority community as “their health issue” the majority of the religious group members practicing the same faith will find the health issue as routed in their membership to the minority group and find you unfaithful.

Health Issue
On Wednesday I asked you to locate an article in your magazine that targeted a health issue. Use this article to answer the questions below.

1) Provide a summary of your article.

An article written by Dr. Frank Spinelli titled “Dangerous Liaisons” was published for the December 2009/January 2010 edition of the Advocate magazine. The article was about sex toys and the potential harm that can be caused by sex toys that are made with jelly rubber. The jelly rubber is made with a chemical compound called phthalates, which can cause damage to the liver, lungs, brain, kidneys, and testes. The article advised against the use of toys made with jelly rubber and recommended that purchasers of sex toys should stick to toys made of silicone, hard plastic, glass, or metal.

2) Describe what, if any, health access issues are discussed.

The health issues discussed included damage to the liver, lungs, brain, kidneys, and testes caused by a harmful compound in jelly rubber used to make cheap sex toys. The article mentions that the compound phthalates are believed to be so harmful that in 2008, Congress banned the sale of children’s toys and baby products that contain more than 0.1% of certain phthalates.

3) What unique factors were discussed as health concerns of the gay/lesbian community in your article?

What was uniquely discussed in this article was that the cheaper sex toy using jelly rubber is dangerous when compared to the traditional materials used in sex toys of silicone, hard plastic, glass, or metal. There was nothing really discussed specifically aimed at the gay/lesbian community. But what was implied by having the article in the Advocate’s health section is that members of the LGBT community are more likely than non-members to use sex toys, which I find personally erroneous.

4) Describe, if applicable, how the attitudes/beliefs/knowledge of medical staff might intersect with the health issue/experience discussed in your article. Health issues/experiences in general?

A medical staff would have no intersection of attitudes/beliefs/knowledge with the health issue discussed in the article because it is a health matter that could be equally experienced by any individual and not simply member of the LGBTQQI community. The use of sex toys is prevalence in the heterosexual majority just as it is in any other group which has no faith/religious/ideological issues with self-pleasure. As far as the health issues/experiences in general intersecting with the attitudes/beliefs/knowledge of medical staff I would assume no real differences to be involved for a couple of reasons. Firstly, medical staff are learned people with the cognitive capability of being about to set aside personal beliefs and attitude to use medical knowledge to do what is best for their patient. Secondly, most medical staff has had some sort of education on the interaction with a wide variety of mainstream divergent groups. Now sure a medical staff member would probably like to know sexual orientation with regards to how attentive their aseptic technique is for the patient based on data driven ideas of blood based transfer o disease, but this information does not have to be disseminated through the medical staff because they should be using the highest grade of aseptic technique at all times with all patients.