The Pro-Life Homosexual

It's amazing how we come to be who are in ways that defy what we want to be. I've always had different views, at least, against the views of my childhood time and place.

In high school, we had an informal debate on abortion in my Public Speaking and Argumentation class. My dear friend Sheila and I were probably the only two in the class who were in the affirmative side. The rest of the class, 40 or so, were against. There were no winners and losers as the debate was informal, but in my mind, I was pretty sure we won that debate.

However, in the years after that, my assumptions about my life were rocked at their foundations. I became suicidal and I discovered that I am gay. Perhaps, I was suicidal then because I was gay. Certainly, there were many times later when I wanted to die because I am gay.

Those were the times I realized the fickleness of personhood. Those were the times I was most scared I had become less than human in the eyes of my family and friends. But those too were the times I believed most that I am as human as I have ever been.

That was how I became pro-life. I needed a stable and reliable presumption of personhood, a premise that is secular, self-evident, self-standing, constant and unchanging, and absolutely independent of the whims of any human power. It was no longer enough that we should be human because a benevolent human society confers upon us our humanity. Human law must reflect the ultimate, immovable, eternal truth of our humanity. The presumption of personhood must be a universal principle. It is the only way that homosexuals can claim equality because our personhood does not derive from human law but in the universal presumption of personhood.