TexasCHLforum.com

I let a girl pierce my left ear with a GIGANTIC needle when I was about 18 or so. Why? Because I badly wanted to get to know her in the Biblical sense, and it seemed at the time like a good way to get there. I had a gold stud in it for about two weeks until my dad saw it for the first time. He gave me the choice between losing the piercing and continuing to live rent-free under his roof, or keeping my ear piercing and living under my own roof.

It was an easy decision.

anygunanywhere wrote:Reality is when you are interviewing for a job and those really rebellious tatoos and piercings keep you from getting a good job. The degree that we try to not conform to society we always wind up conforming to something else and wind up being labeled and possibly discriminated against for our looks.

Perhaps discussions such as these help break down walls.

Anygunanywhere

I have no problem with that, and if I were the one doing the hiring, I still might choose the more "straight arrow" looking applicant, if the job is going to involve customer contact, and things like that. But that still doesn't mean that I think the "non-traditional" looking applicant has less personal integrity or strength of character, nor do I have any particular basis on which to question their masculinity - which was directly alluded to in the OP. So sure, there is such a thing as the practical aspects of how we look, and if someone wants to have a pink mohawk and wear a nose ring, they should do it with the certain knowledge that their appearance will necessarily block their access to certain things in life, and not complain about it; but that is no reason for me (or anyone else for that matter) to disrespect that person.

I mean this most respectfully, Abraham, but I think you should spend more time looking for the person's heart and inner character, than making snap judgements based on external appearances.

My father was a decorated hero at Iwo Jima, wounded in action when shot through the chest by a Japanese sniper in Cushman's Pocket as a 2nd Lieutenant. He led the surviving men of his platoon to safety after been trapped behind enemy lines for 36 hours. Before the war, he was a bos'n's mate on a 110 ft schooner owned by the Scripps Oceanography Institute, doing secret research for the Navy's submarine service. During that time, he wore his hair long and tied back in a pony tail. This was in 1939. After the war, he was a "starving artist" living on the left bank in the Latin Quarter in Paris, France. After that, he got two PhD's and was a professor at Caltech for the rest of his life, until he died in 1990. During my entire life until Dad died, he wore his hair long and had a scruffy beard.

Similarly, a whole bunch of the fine young men and women serving our nation today in Iraq and Afghanistan had tattoos and body piercings before entering the service, and many others got those things while in the service. Many of the men had highlighted hair or long hair, etc., etc., etc. These young folks are the finest this nation has to offer, and I think you do them a disservice when you call their character and sexual orientation into question just because they don't look or act absolutely straight laced.

A couple of the finest Christian men I know would not pass your inspection. I try to look for the inner person and not judge them by their hair or their earrings.