Fish Out of Water: Queer and Asian Panel

Word count: 439

Attending the "Queer and Asian Panel: Religion and Spirituality" on campus gave me a much deeper look into the views and lifestyles of others who are much different from myself.

The event itself was very small scale and was held in the Mod A building on Tuesday from 6-7:30 p.m.

The panel consisted of four individuals from various religious and cultural backgrounds.

The thing that tied them all together was their Asian background, which played a role in not only their religion, but also their gender choices and how it has affected their families as well as themselves.

The religious backgrounds consisted of Buddhism, Catholicism, Christianity and agnostic.

Ethnic backgrounds consisted of Vietnamese, Korean and Mexican.

After hearing each panelist speak about his or her life I began to understand the intense diversity our world has to offer.

It was difficult to wrap my head around certain ideas at times because of my heavily Christian upbringing.

The ideas and beliefs I heard were very foreign to me at times, which prompted me to think about my own views and beliefs as a person.

It was quite evident that the ties between gender and religion go hand in hand in many cases.

Because many religions do not condone homosexuality, the panelists explained the changes and alterations each of them made in order to continue practicing their religion.

In one case, one of the panelists dropped her religion completely and became agnostic.

Because of religious rules and family concerns, it makes sexual variation a very difficult process to incorporate within one's life.

At times, the answers each panelist had to the questions concerning their religion and family lives made me very sad because each of their answers had undertones of hopelessness.

That doesn't necessarily mean they are all sad, but it was very apparent that each of them is fighting a continuous battle both in their outside lives and within themselves.

This outside battle for many of them is in large part due to their parents and the traditional Asian lifestyles they have been raised in.

The lack of understanding on the parents behalf is a direct result, in most cases, of the religion they partake in.

From this I came to realize that we all have something inside of ourselves that we are battling.

Every person has struggles and dilemmas in their lives because we are all human beings.

If we step back from the labels and titles we all wear on a consistent basis we may finally begin to see one another for who we are as people and not our sexual orientations or religious affiliations.