Church: Accept gay people as whole persons

      "My name is Carol Keck and I have a gay son."
      Keck, 44, made this difficult statement a year ago before a group of unfamiliar faces at a meeting of Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays.
     

Carol Keck talks about accepting her son's homosexuality. Keck is president of Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays. Photo by John Gurzinski.

She said those words gave her the jump-start she had been lacking for 11 years. Making the statement gave her courage to tell anyone at anytime that her son, Raymond Keck, is a wonderful and loving person who deserves respect, not ridicule, because of his sexual inclinations. In January, she became the group's president.
      On Tuesday, U.S. Catholic bishops released a pastoral letter reaffirming Keck's position and encouraging others to follow her example. The letter said homosexual orientation is not freely chosen and parents should not reject their gay children when society already has enough rejection and discrimination.
      Bishop Daniel Walsh, with the Las Vegas Diocese, said Friday that isn't to say the church believes people are born gay.
      "I think we believe that there is enough evidence (indicating) that one does not choose this necessarily. Some people would say if you are homosexual you have chosen to be that, but we don't necessarily believe that.
      "The purpose of the letter was to show that we want to treat every human person with compassion and respect. Your child is a gift from God and love him as he is or she is, but that doesn't mean you have to approve of him robbing banks for example. That's what we are saying," Walsh said.
      Raymond Keck, now 27 and living in Southern California, told his mother at 15 that he was gay.
      "I remember pounding on his chest and saying don't you know you are going to die? This is the worst life you could... I think I even said the word choose at the time," Carol Keck recalled Wednesday. "That was just ignorance and fear talking."
      Choose was the key word, continues Keck, who said that through education she has learned it was not her son's choice but something he couldn't control.
      Keck said she struggled from a religious standpoint while trying to accept and understand what her son had told her. At one point she found herself in the midst of a discussion at the Church of Latter-day Saints she attends with people who didn't know she had a gay son. The group was talking about whether homosexual evangelists should be ordained and what church privileges they should have.
      "In my head were these voices asking: OK Carol what are you going to do? And finally I said 'stop.' And they looked at me, and I didn't know what else to say. So I said 'stop' again. Finally I told them my son was gay," Keck said. Church members assured her that her son would be accepted.
      Other churches have a similar philosophy.
      "We have always been open to someone with a homosexual nature," said the Rev. Dave Casaleggio with Our Lady of Las Vegas Catholic Church on Alta Drive.
      "The issue (of homosexuality) is really secondary. The primary (issue) is that sexuality belongs in the confines of marriage. Whether somebody is gay or heterosexual and wants to work within the church, it is doable because the issue is the same -- sexuality."
      Although Catholicism teaches that sex should be confined to marriage, Casaleggio said the church does not anticipate acknowledging same sex marriages. Bishop Walsh agreed.
      Still, the position taken by bishops was hailed as one of great progress by the Rev. Beau McDaniels of the Metropolitan Community Church, 1140 Almond Tree Lane, which has a largely homosexual congregation.
      "The problem to date has been that religious leaders and various denominations believed that homosexuals had a choice just like drug users have a choice. And we were put in the category of the sick, sinful and depraved. The problem was homosexuality has never been a choice. It's always been DNA," said McDaniels, who is homosexual.
      "This statement of it not being our choice and love your gay and lesbian children is a huge step," McDaniels added.
      For Keck, the night she introduced herself to the community group and said she had a gay son was the turning point.
      "Until that night, it was only in the household and everywhere you went there was something to confirm that it was wrong. But at that meeting I felt like a new door had opened," she said. "I loved my son and I thought what else could there be? I love my son and I am standing by him. Even if I had to leave my religion I was prepared to do that for my son."
      The Catholic church took its stand for parents and families, Walsh said. To encourage people not to reduce their homosexual relatives to their sexuality, but instead to see them as a whole person and love them for who they are.