Depravity by Gillian

God I hate that word. I think because it is so often linked, by those who condemn us, with homosexuality.

I know its origin is theological and all about Original Sin and dates back to St Augustine, but that has little to do with its general usage today.

(That same St Augustine, by the way, who is widely quoted as having said, ‘God give me chastity and continence, but not yet’.)

The most-used definition seems to be moral corruption.

Now I don’t really mind the term moral/immoral, despite it’s judgment there’s something soft and round and benign about it.

Corruption, according to Wikipedia, is, in terms of morality, spiritual or moral impurity or deviation from an ideal.

Well, O.K., I don’t buy any of it with reference to homosexuality, but it doesn’t have that heavy, hard-edged hatred to it that depravity has.

Synonyms offered for depravity range from baseness, contamination, debauchery and  degeneracy all the way to sinfulness, wickedness and downright evil.

Well excuse me, but that just aint me.

The antonyms are things like good, honor, justice, morality and virtue.

Call me delusional but I know that in my queerness I have my fair share of all those qualities.

Perhaps, I thought, when I began pondering this topic, perhaps I exaggerate in my own head the frequent connection of the word depravity with homosexuality.

So I asked the expert.

I asked Mr. Google because Mr. Google knows everything.

Homosexual depravity got 2,220,000 results.

It’s not in my head.

A delightful Massachusetts group called Massresistance writes about a high school play performed this Thanksgiving.  They title the article Depraved Homosexual Musical and describe it this way.

The family deals with the husband's flagrant sexual relationship with another man, as well as their lesbian neighbors, along with a heavy doses of profanity and general depravity.

Yup, sounds pretty sinful to me.

Incidentally the play apparently has a song which I’d love to hear, called

Don’t Make Noise But Daddy’s Kissing Boys.

The Christian Action Network describes Gay Day at Disneyworld as an orgy of depravity.

‘We can’t begin to describe the things we saw’.

Which begs an obvious question, then, why were you there??

I have to thank this group for choosing a topic at which I originally cringed.

In thinking about it I have seen its absurdity, or I should say the absurdity of those little, mean, shriveled-up people who abuse the word the way they do.

They should stick with St. Augustine who also, supposedly, said,

‘Love, and do what you like.’

December 2011

About the Author

I was born and raised in England. After graduation from college there, I moved to the U.S. and, having discovered Colorado, never left. I have lived in the Denver-Boulder area since 1965, working for 30 years at IBM. I married, raised four stepchildren, then got divorced after finally, in my forties, accepting myself as a lesbian. I have now been with my wonderful partner Betsy for 25 years.