Weird conversation with Hub, who now thinks his wife is totally losing her mind

So I said to Hub, "I think I have to stop taking the kids to that church."

And he frowned and said, "Why?"

"I had sort of an....argument today. With one of the priests."

Hub rolled his eyes. He's got the eye-roll down, so that all he has do is barely flick them, and I know exactly what he's thinking.

"There was this old American priest, one of the half-retired old men who live there, and he was walking around making small talk with the parents who were waiting for their kids in Sunday school. I stood up to talk to him -- he couldn't hear me, when I was sitting down, and he didn't sit down himself. I told him who I was, where I was from, and said we had just lived in San Francisco."

"Uh-oh..."

"So he asked -- I forget his exact words, but he said something like, and has the city changed? How is the gay problem?"

Hub knows that for me, that's like waving a red flag in front of a bull.

"I said something like, there was no problem! We knew lots of gay families, and there were even some kids at our Catholic school with two daddies, and they were welcomed and accepted!"

For the priest, THAT, too, was like waving a red flag in front of a bull.

Hub sighed. "WHY did you say that?"

And I did something that I had wanted to do at church today, but didn't -- I started to cry. I haven't cried in over three months, since the last time the little boss screamed at me at work. I guess I had a lot of tears building up.

Why did I say it? I think it has to do with the fact that I spend five days a week really trying hard to keep my mouth shut, and not get in trouble with the little boss. I guess all that repression has to come out somewhere, right?

The priest had launched into a cheerful condescending lecture, all the while shaking his head sadly at me, and saying the homosexual lifestyle was evil.

Yep, EVIL. He actually used the word EVIL. Gay families at a Catholic school? He shook his head sadly again. "You can't take something EVIL and make it good, just by calling it good!"

Homosexuality was evil, he said, because it kept people from being in full communion with the church.

"But that's okay," I blurted out. "I'm not in communion with the church either, because I married someone who opposed raising the kids Catholic!"

The priest looked confused, and asked, ""Where's your husband?"

"He's at home! You will never see him, because he never comes here!" Actually, that's not quite true -- when the kids were baptized, he dressed up in a suit and came to record the event on video. He rolled his eyes at the whole baptism thing, but there was no way that he was going to shirk his role as our family's photographer.

As I listened to the priest's rant, I was so angry I was literally trembling -- I had to cross my arms, and shift my weight from leg to leg so hopefully no one would notice I was shaking like a leaf. I wanted to cry, but used all the energy I could muster to suppress it.

"Why does it matter what people do in their bedrooms?" I remember asking.

"Of course it matters!" said the old priest.

But it doesn't.

Later, I realized I should have also asked MYSELF, "What does it matter what one doddering ancient priest thinks about this particular subject?" Of course it matters, I thought at the time.

But it equally doesn't.

What matters is that we're raising our kids to think that homosexuality is not evil but a perfectly natural thing, for a small percentage of the population who happen to live that way.

Anyway........a church friend of mine diffused the situation by making unrelated small talk with the priest, and then gently led him away from me.

I sat down next to another church friend of mine, a woman I'd only befriended since we moved back this year.

And she....said all the wrong things.

"Maybe this isn't the right church for you," she said, in a gentle, well-meaning tone. She talked about how the Catholic church had to be "consistent, to keep its integrity." And then she said something about how gay people have a choice, and she knows someone who lived with a woman for years but was now happily married to a man, etc. etc.

But none of what she said upset me -- we haven't known each very other long, but we have already determined that we don't see eye to eye on a lot of things. I knew she meant well, and her words bounced off me like water off a duck.

In fact, people say stuff to me ALL THE TIME, about all kinds of things, and it doesn't upset me the way the priest's words did today. It was truly unusual for me, to get so upset at something like that as I did today.

And then hours later, I still couldn't tell Hub about it without crying.

"You want to STOP going to that church? But the kids enjoy the Sunday school, and it's good for them, and it's good for Little Son's English practice, and you like going because it's how you honor your grandmother's memory."

In other words, Hub may roll his eyes at the religion part, but he sees a lot of secular good in his wife and kids going to church. It was funny, though, to hear anti-Catholic Hub list out all the reasons why church is good.

I do think I know why I got so upset: It's because I miss San Francisco. I am settled here, but I am still grieving for my life over there. And most of my life over there revolved around a church and a Catholic school.

There are plenty of conservative Catholics in our former parish, some of whom voted for Proposition 8 and were very vocal about it. But the thing about San Francisco is, most people know at least one openly gay person, if not several -- their neighbors, their co-workers, even their unlikely friends. The "gay agenda" has a face there, and it's a friendly, familiar face. So while these conservative people have very back-and-white opinions on the subject based on their deeply held religious beliefs, in four years living there, I had never heard homosexuality described so casually as EVIL.

I have to admit, too, that the view that homosexuality is EVIL is probably the biggest problem I personally have with the Catholic church.

The gender theory/feminist stuff -- yeah, that pisses me off, but it's not as if the church is out there campaigning for laws that give women fewer rights in the workplace. The abortion/contraception views, while I don't happen to agree with them, are at least rooted in a compassionate desire to protect life, and I understand and respect where pro-life people are coming from.

But to say that homosexuality is evil, is like -- well, as one of my friends puts it, God made these people, and God doesn't make mistakes.

Anyway, the kids wanted extra donuts today, so we lingered a bit after mass. I saw the old priest on my way out, and went up to him, intending to apologize -- not for my opinions, but for upsetting him. It is never my intent to upset people.

He didn't seem upset. In fact, he seemed a bit....confused. Maybe he's a little out of it? I introduced him to the Daughter and Little Son, and he asked them questions about school, etc.

I hope, at the very least, he remembers who I am, and tells them I am NOT a good candidate for the Liturgy Committee.

Anyway, this post really has no point. Today I got deeply upset about something someone said that was totally unsurprising considering the person who said it -- and the whole thing is really ultimately meaningless -- and yet.......I guess I have to admit I still miss SF enough to cry about it sometimes.