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A question of faith.
I find myself blankly offended.
In some ways I'm even more offended because I am a Christian. My faith has always been important to me. Being queer and Christian are two things that most people seem to feel are mutually exclusive, but I can't agree. And then I read things like this. It is painful on a fundamental level. To feel this kind of hatred aimed at me by people who claim, at the same time, to want to bring "Christ's love" to the world.
"You telling these miserable, Hell-bound, bath house-wallowing, anal-copulating fags that God loves them!? You have bats in the belfry!"
That? Where does that come from? Where does that kind of hate fit into Christ's tenant that we are to "love your neighbor as yourself"? It doesn't. It's that simple. It just doesn't. I know that growing up I was terrified of my own sexuality. That the very idea that I might be even a little bit "that way" was something that was out of the question. My ability to wrap my mind around the thought that I was queer wasn't something I was capable of. Convinced that I would be disowned and abandoned, I simply decided to ignore it. My bisexuality was something I viewed as a kind of safety net. I wasn't lying to anyone, I wasn't doing anything wrong, I simply didn't allow that aspect of myself to have any kind of outward effect on my life. I lived the "don't ask don't tell" ideal.
And it ate me from the inside out.
Coming to terms with what I -- no, who I -- am was far from easy. I spent years walking a fine line that, at times, wasn't a line at all, but simply a free fall. Raised to believe that being queer was something patently unacceptable, a sin, something only the craven and wicked chose for themselves left me feeling hollow and lost. I knew God loved me. That certainty has never wavered. What I couldn't comprehend was how I could have been made in such defiance of what I was told were His laws, His rules. Obviously I was failing as a Christian. If I were stronger, if my faith were greater then I wouldn't find myself struggling with this temptation.
I remember attending a church event at a large Baptist church in my area when I was in high school. They were worshiping, singing, and I felt that sense of peace that only comes from God. But then they began to speak about "those things we hide in our hearts." I'm gay, I thought and felt sick. Then one of the youth pastors noticed my distress and, pulling me to the side, asked me if there was anything I needed to share. I'd never told anyone. Never voiced, to anyone, what I was terrified was an irredeemable flaw on my part. But I needed it then. Needed the release of sharing the weight of what I thought was my greatest failing.
So I whispered to her that I thought that, maybe, I was was attracted to girls.
"Have you ever...?" She asked me, obviously trying hard not to let her horror show.
"No."
"Good." And she gave me what I supposed she thought was assuring smile. "We can help you with this. You don't have to be that way."
And in that moment something inside me clicked. Because all I could think was, "But why can't I?"
I would ask myself this question again and again in the years that followed. I would pray and question and deny and, in the end, wouldn't breath word of this to another soul until after I graduated from college. Wouldn't dare to say out loud what I'd feared, and finally accepted to be true back in high school, until a year ago. I was 23. And even though I told my best friend. Even though I knew that Wayne cared about me and would never, never turn her back on me, I still remember the moment of fear that left my mouth dry. Because what if Wayne, of the unshakable faith, turned to me and said that she could only "love the sinner but not the sin"?
There is a kind of deep and unwavering self loathing that you struggle with when you look at what you are sure you are meant to be, and yet fail to achieve. It is fed by a guilt that grows and expands every time you hear the word "sinner" and know that, whether the people around you know it or not, they're speaking about you. It is the usual "coming out" story made that much worse by the fact that you are unable to even come out to yourself. The moment you acknowledge your sexuality as true, you must also accept that, if what the world around you says is right about their God, then you have moved outside God's favor.
Every one accepts themselves along a different timeline. Each person has life defining epiphanies at unique moments in their lives. I have yet to come out to my parents, though my younger sister knows. Why? Because my father's faith has no place for homosexuality as anything other than sin. Even later, I know my father would love me but it wouldn't be acceptance. It would be love in spite of this sin I refuse to let go of. He doesn't hate, but he is like too many others, unable to see past what it is that they have been told it is "good" and "right" to love.
A friend once told me that being gay had to be a choice. "I just don't think that a God that loves His children would make anyone something that wrong on purpose." I don't think it had ever occurred to her that maybe God could love his children even if they are gay.
I read what these people have said. I read the hate and loathing and the fear in their words and I think about how far I have come, how many times I walked to the edge and nearly let them and their small minded words, small minded god, push me over the side. And then I remember my God. I remember and know that it was Him, and my faith in Him that pulled me back from that same edge. It's that same knowledge that gives me my resolve.
I refuse to allow these people the power to take away my faith. I refuse to allow these people and their fear to force me away from the church in which I find love. I refuse to allow these people to change God from a creator who loves, into a weapon of hate.
I'm well aware of the fact that these are all issues we've seen before. It isn't anything new that there is hate in the world, or that much of it is couched in unreasonable, and patently insane, religious terms. But that isn't the God I worship. That isn't the faith that has helped me and made me the person I am today. None of this makes these words hurt any less though. None of this makes me any less angry or offended. You should be too if only because Faith, religious or otherwise, is an intensely personal thing. And yet there are people in the world who seek to rob us of even that. It's our right to defend our own, personal faiths, with as much strength, with as much volume and as much defiance as they do their, "sanctity of marriage," or "family values."
It is our right and it is our job. Arm yourselves well.
In some ways I'm even more offended because I am a Christian. My faith has always been important to me. Being queer and Christian are two things that most people seem to feel are mutually exclusive, but I can't agree. And then I read things like this. It is painful on a fundamental level. To feel this kind of hatred aimed at me by people who claim, at the same time, to want to bring "Christ's love" to the world.
"You telling these miserable, Hell-bound, bath house-wallowing, anal-copulating fags that God loves them!? You have bats in the belfry!"
That? Where does that come from? Where does that kind of hate fit into Christ's tenant that we are to "love your neighbor as yourself"? It doesn't. It's that simple. It just doesn't. I know that growing up I was terrified of my own sexuality. That the very idea that I might be even a little bit "that way" was something that was out of the question. My ability to wrap my mind around the thought that I was queer wasn't something I was capable of. Convinced that I would be disowned and abandoned, I simply decided to ignore it. My bisexuality was something I viewed as a kind of safety net. I wasn't lying to anyone, I wasn't doing anything wrong, I simply didn't allow that aspect of myself to have any kind of outward effect on my life. I lived the "don't ask don't tell" ideal.
And it ate me from the inside out.
Coming to terms with what I -- no, who I -- am was far from easy. I spent years walking a fine line that, at times, wasn't a line at all, but simply a free fall. Raised to believe that being queer was something patently unacceptable, a sin, something only the craven and wicked chose for themselves left me feeling hollow and lost. I knew God loved me. That certainty has never wavered. What I couldn't comprehend was how I could have been made in such defiance of what I was told were His laws, His rules. Obviously I was failing as a Christian. If I were stronger, if my faith were greater then I wouldn't find myself struggling with this temptation.
I remember attending a church event at a large Baptist church in my area when I was in high school. They were worshiping, singing, and I felt that sense of peace that only comes from God. But then they began to speak about "those things we hide in our hearts." I'm gay, I thought and felt sick. Then one of the youth pastors noticed my distress and, pulling me to the side, asked me if there was anything I needed to share. I'd never told anyone. Never voiced, to anyone, what I was terrified was an irredeemable flaw on my part. But I needed it then. Needed the release of sharing the weight of what I thought was my greatest failing.
So I whispered to her that I thought that, maybe, I was was attracted to girls.
"Have you ever...?" She asked me, obviously trying hard not to let her horror show.
"No."
"Good." And she gave me what I supposed she thought was assuring smile. "We can help you with this. You don't have to be that way."
And in that moment something inside me clicked. Because all I could think was, "But why can't I?"
I would ask myself this question again and again in the years that followed. I would pray and question and deny and, in the end, wouldn't breath word of this to another soul until after I graduated from college. Wouldn't dare to say out loud what I'd feared, and finally accepted to be true back in high school, until a year ago. I was 23. And even though I told my best friend. Even though I knew that Wayne cared about me and would never, never turn her back on me, I still remember the moment of fear that left my mouth dry. Because what if Wayne, of the unshakable faith, turned to me and said that she could only "love the sinner but not the sin"?
There is a kind of deep and unwavering self loathing that you struggle with when you look at what you are sure you are meant to be, and yet fail to achieve. It is fed by a guilt that grows and expands every time you hear the word "sinner" and know that, whether the people around you know it or not, they're speaking about you. It is the usual "coming out" story made that much worse by the fact that you are unable to even come out to yourself. The moment you acknowledge your sexuality as true, you must also accept that, if what the world around you says is right about their God, then you have moved outside God's favor.
Every one accepts themselves along a different timeline. Each person has life defining epiphanies at unique moments in their lives. I have yet to come out to my parents, though my younger sister knows. Why? Because my father's faith has no place for homosexuality as anything other than sin. Even later, I know my father would love me but it wouldn't be acceptance. It would be love in spite of this sin I refuse to let go of. He doesn't hate, but he is like too many others, unable to see past what it is that they have been told it is "good" and "right" to love.
A friend once told me that being gay had to be a choice. "I just don't think that a God that loves His children would make anyone something that wrong on purpose." I don't think it had ever occurred to her that maybe God could love his children even if they are gay.
I read what these people have said. I read the hate and loathing and the fear in their words and I think about how far I have come, how many times I walked to the edge and nearly let them and their small minded words, small minded god, push me over the side. And then I remember my God. I remember and know that it was Him, and my faith in Him that pulled me back from that same edge. It's that same knowledge that gives me my resolve.
I refuse to allow these people the power to take away my faith. I refuse to allow these people and their fear to force me away from the church in which I find love. I refuse to allow these people to change God from a creator who loves, into a weapon of hate.
I'm well aware of the fact that these are all issues we've seen before. It isn't anything new that there is hate in the world, or that much of it is couched in unreasonable, and patently insane, religious terms. But that isn't the God I worship. That isn't the faith that has helped me and made me the person I am today. None of this makes these words hurt any less though. None of this makes me any less angry or offended. You should be too if only because Faith, religious or otherwise, is an intensely personal thing. And yet there are people in the world who seek to rob us of even that. It's our right to defend our own, personal faiths, with as much strength, with as much volume and as much defiance as they do their, "sanctity of marriage," or "family values."
It is our right and it is our job. Arm yourselves well.
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So right. You go girl!
"Those that mind don't matter, and those that matter don't mind." If God really does love his children no matter what, so much that He sent His Son to die for them, then of course He will accept you all.
I refuse to allow these people the power to take away my faith.
Good on ya. It's their opinion, and no human opinion counts: look through God's eyes and everyone, including homosexuals, is beautiful.
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Two cents.. no, make that 3 ^^
- God hates the sin but loves the sinner.
Very standard. But the question is, what is the sin per se?
It's pretty much unequivocally stated that it is a sin for a man to lie with a man (and by analogy, for a woman to lie with a woman), but this is a sin on par with and in the same category as any other sin of sexual immorality. This in turn equates two things:
The first is pretty much basic -- if you're Protestant, then you'd probably subscribe to the doctrine that we are all sinners, but we have all been redeemed by the blood of Christ, and no sin is greater than any other sin. Therefore, singling out homosexuals as 'Hell-bound' doesn't make doctrinal sense.
The second is my own conclusion and slightly further out -- the problem with homosexuality is not the love, nor the attraction, but the fact that homosexuals have sex for the sole purpose of having sex (as opposed to having sex for the sake of procreation.) And the problem with that is not so much that sex itself is a sin, but that it is a thing of the flesh, not of the Spirit.
From what I've seen thus far, homosexuality isn't exactly singled out for bashing -- it's always one line in a whole paragraph about fornication, bestiality and occasionally, adultery, etc. From context, therefore, it's very clear that it's certainly not love that's the problem -- the problem would be a person who wantonly and unrepentently indulges in the pleasures of the flesh.
While people are likely to jump on me and accuse me of a hair-splitting meaning-changing lawyer, it seems to me as clear as day. But for me, the clearest answer is the fact that I have a girlfriend that I love and adore (but whom I'll never sleep with), and our relationship of which I've prayed again and again and again about, and I've never received any sense of censure, nor has the Father seen fit to curtail it despite my asking that He do so if it displeases Him. Because, from everything I've read in the Bible, there is absolutely nothing wrong with Love itself.
The problem is that a lot of these hate-mongers don't think. I find that an appalling number of my Christian counterparts have been brought up believing that homosexuality = bad, gays = going to Hell, and homosexuality is somehow a cardinal sin worse than murder, and accept that as Gospel truth. The problem is that people have been so conditioned into believing that it's unnatural and wrong that they react on a instinctive gut level instead of on an intellectual level, and they just /can't/ learn to accept it, no matter how prolifically one might argue the case. (The smarter ones I know admit to this :P).
Whatever it is, I hope you find an answer one day. But I certainly agree that there's absolutely no room for hate in our faith.
Re: Two cents.. no, make that 3 ^^
Re: Two cents.. no, make that 3 ^^
Re: Two cents.. no, make that 3 ^^
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Be strong, babe. We’re always here for you if you need us.
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People do hate and fear the different. And really, they don't need religion to back them up. I was growing up in an officially atheist country, and no, there was no acceptance or tolerance, in fact, male homosexual practice (consentual, yes) was a criminal offense till 1990s. So, anyway.
That aside, there are pretty much only two ways we can really learn anything about God. Not from preaching, they are human like us and can be - mistaken, let's call it that. So, the Bible. And what's in our heart.
And I'm not that much of a scholar, but I've come across some sources that say that, sure, Old Testament condemns homosexual prostitution, rape, child abuse, promiscuity, same way it does with heterosexual versions of all that. But it doesn't really say anything about loving, monogamous, committed same-sex relationships. I also read that the word that is translated as "sodomite" in King James's in original Hebrew refers to a male (pagan) temple prostitute. Which, yeah, totally a different story.
But what my heart tells me is this. Even WE can love someone like we do, regardless if they are the same denomination, or subscribe to same worldview, or have no faults, or if they even love us back. No reasoning, no justification needed. So. Really. We shoulnd't doubt.
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Ah, I can understand those quoting sacred texts for justification or excuse, but it makes me sad, this approach. Recalling history and how one word became a lever in a (politics-inspired, duh) crack between catholic and orthodox churches - does it make any of them less valid now?
.....oh. I should better stop now. I just hate it when religion has anything to do with state, when beliefs are turned from an inner guideline into a tool and a weapon.
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I think I've said this before, but I was brought up (religiously) the same way as you--that restrictive kind of religion where "gay is wrong." Knowing that, I admire you deeply for being able to come to terms with a part of yourself that church went against, and still know that God loves you. That will -always- be something you can look on and be proud of--that no matter how much struggle it took, you kept a piece of yourself no matter what this part of the religion thought, and did it even though belief is insanely hard to change.
Being queer and Christian are two things that most people seem to feel are mutually exclusive, but I can't agree.
WORD. I don't see how God can be one that looks down on love of any kind, and pleasure that does harm to no one. You (& me & Ryu & tons of other people) believe in this God--I'm certain that the rest of his followers will understand too, soon.
♥
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The good news is, our side is winning. That's why all those whack-jobs are so worked up. Twenty, even ten, years ago, there weren't any state constitutional amendments banning same-sex marriage, because the very notion was unthinkable. Now, it's thinkable.
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I admire your courage and strength.
/hugs
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It is our right and it is our job. Arm yourselves well.
A lot of people read what they've been told is in the Bible, rather than what's actually there. I've found that getting people to see what's there can change minds and hearts. Perhaps these few things I wrote (http://www.livejournal.com/users/daegaer/tag/homosexuality) might prove useful to you.
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In rebuttal, I always like to offer Ecclesiastes 7:13 "Consider the work of God; for who can make straight what He has made crooked?"
-'dog
(who is very happy she grew up and came out in the San Fagcisco Bay Area.)
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just...thank you for saying this.
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(and completely unrelated, I love your icons...the WK OAVs are vastly underappreciated ^_^)
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I've been dealing with this issue for years now, years replete with hearing my family say hurtful things about gays and lesbians and feeling uncomfortable walking into church because I was convinced that, being gay, it was a slap in God's face and, despite being taught that God never rescinds his love, felt that I had sinned and fallen short of the glory, as it were. The same sort of thing most people deal with, I'm sure.
It is relieving to know that others have been where I am now, and have come to the same conclusion that you can be gay and be a Christian at the same time. And that helps me to feel a little more at peace with myself.
So, thanks for putting your struggle into words (very eloquently, at that) and giving others some hope, as well. God bless :)
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