Below, you'll find two excerpts from an email I sent to a good friend and pastor of a non-denominational church, with whom I had a recent in-depth discussion on the topics of homosexuality and the Bible. While I could rewrite everything I wrote in these excerpts to fit the format of my blog, this isn't necessary. I'll make a few adjustments for clarity, but I believe the content stands on its own.
Excerpt #1:
Homosexuality, and the often quoted references to it in the Bible, are not cut and dried. How can they be? I'm gay. I've always been gay. I will always be gay (even though some think, if I wanted to badly enough, I could be cured). I refuse to believe I'm a bad person because I love, and have sex with, someone of the same gender. Who am I really hurting by being true to myself, by being who I was meant to be? How is that a sin, particularly if you are born gay, as I believe to the core of my being I was?
Thus, despite what devoted Christians think, being gay is not a moral issue (which I wrote about previously in another post). I refuse to believe it is. At some point, if you're gay and religious to whatever extent, you have to decide to accept and love yourself, to live your life as you are, and to take the risk you won't enjoy eternal life with God in heaven. Otherwise, there would be no point living this life on earth. (And I don't believe for a moment not accepting and loving myself--that is suffering in this life being what I am and never following through on it--would make God look at me any more favorably when it comes to the afterlife. I'm not prepared to carry that cross on earth, so to speak, for the possibility of making it to heaven.)
Excerpt #2:
Do you worry about my soul? Do you think my confusion about what to believe in the Bible and my belief some Bible passages should be questioned will prevent me from assuming my place next to God after I've passed on? I don't worry about that anymore. I may have, when I was coming to terms with being gay. In fact, being raised Catholic, it was a BIG part of the process.
But I've had to accept myself, and along with that, I've had to accept what may eventually happen to my soul. What choice do I have? I am who I am. I fought too hard, for too long, against homosexuality, and where did it get me? I've had to get on with it, and, where my sexual orientation is concerned, I know I'm in a better place now than I've ever been.
I have a right to love someone, even if that someone is the same gender. I have a right to enjoy companionship and intimacy the same as any straight person. I have a right to be a whole human being and not to hate myself anymore because I'm gay. And I have a right to believe what I believe and live will be acceptable to God in the end.
Some day I will magically find myself in the quaint town of Maple Ridge, British Columbia, and I will wander into a coffee shop and I will find you sitting there, discussing with your most earnest of hearts the reason that you get to be yourself. And I will sit in the corner, and listen, and maybe cry because it will sound frighteningly familiar. And then I will leave, thinking that I am not alone in failing to fight my homosexuality, and that I am not alone in failing to fight a prevailing love of some unknown thing called God.
ReplyDeleteThank you Rick.
Thanks so much for your wonderful comment, Neal.
ReplyDeleteI would be disappointed, indeed, if, in the scenario you described, you didn't introduce yourself to me. You and your partner, whoever he might be at the time you find yourself in Maple Ridge.
I'm grateful I touched you with what I wrote here. I knew other gay men, who love God, would feel the same way. We're caught in the act of balancing who we are with what God wants us to do. I'm afraid we both agree we have no choice but to be ourselves and to hope God will still love, and, if necessary, forgive, us all the same.
Again, thanks for your interest in what I write. I really appreciate it.
Coming from a very conservative province and a relgiosity filled area of it, I find this discussion I have a lot. Being Gay, and raised in the Pentocostal Church, I found myself on two very conflicted paths.
ReplyDeleteIn all honesty, I've had this discussion so often that it's part of my day to day conversation nearly. (It doesn't help to live in a College and University city, where young people flock and find themselves and begining the journey we've all embarked on.)
My personal feelings aside about what the two main scriptures used against us mean, I cannot believe that a God who created me in His (or Her) Image would hate me. Either He/She has got some serious self loathing issues, or the people who think they know what God wants and likes, are wrong.
Can people be wrong? Can the Church be wrong? The Church is composed of people. People can DEFINITELY be wrong. So, if they're wrong at times, and they compose and run the Church, the Church can obviously be wrong too.
I spent years doing what the Church expected, trying to reconcile my Faith with the beliefs I picked up within the Church. It didn't come easy, but I eventually came to the conclusion after seeking out God over and over and over and over again, that I wasn't hated. That the judgement people placed on me, wasn't the judgement God placed on me. God loves me, and I love God.
(side note: Love the blog, I've been lurking for a few months, but really felt compelled to comment after finding that I'm not alone in understanding the Purity of God's Love.)
Thanks so much, chaoticgrrl, for your interest in my blog, your kind words, and your comment.
ReplyDeleteI understand everything you said, and you know from what I wrote I've arrived at a place similar to you. Absolutely, I believe I was born gay, and it's people who purport to be Christians and to follow God's guidelines who use them for their own purpose against me.
I do not believe for a moment God hates me because I'm gay, and I believe, in the end, my afterlife will take place in heaven or in hell not because of my sexual orientation but because of something else I did or didn't do. That's how I've managed to find peace with this matter, and, for those of us who are gay and for whom God is important, I imagine they've found a similar place of peace, too.
Again, thanks for your comment, and I hope you'll continue to look up my blog.