Open Your Eyes

A good article by Julie Bindel about the film Eyes Wide Open. The film depicts what happens when two men, who also happen to be Hassidic Jews, meet and discover their love for one another. As she says about the real-life gay people who exist within such communities:

The fascination for me was the subjects’ allegiance to their religion rather than their sexuality. Why do they stay wedded to a set of beliefs that interprets their lifestyles as an abomination? What pull does fundamentalist religion have for these people, who, unlike many others, could walk away into the arms of another community?

They are good questions, and I don’t know the answers. I also don’t know what would have happened had I, by chance, been born into such a community. Would I have had the strength to be true to myself? Or would I have lived and died under the yoke of an inimical morality?