My Experience With Religion

If you don't want to read the post, this picture sums it all up

I'm currently writing this as a queer person. And as a Christian. And well..yeah the two can actually co-exist happily.



When discovering my queer-ness, my main concern was my religion. The second I said, “I'm not straight and while I'm not sexually attracted to anyone, I am more fond of girls” I was terrified I would be kicked out of Heaven. All chances were gone. No matter how good I was..nope. Not a chance. See half of me pointed out that the New Testament is all about forgiveness. That if we forgive people, God will forgive us of our sins and all will be well. Now I'm not one to hold grudges, and everyone does get angry once in a while and we have to deal with that anger, but I like to think of myself as a somewhat decent person, though I am flawed. So on the one hand, why would I get rejected? Then again the Bible has some stuff about men not laying together. It's an abomination.

I've heard so many sides: how can God hate what He has created? God loves all on Earth. Then I hear that God only loves you if you're a certain way. But then God created everyone so everyone should be fine as is. But people need to develop on their own and are given obstacles. But I'm not hurting anyone with my orientation. But does that really matter?

So completely confused, I headed out to chat with my church's minister who I think is a pretty cool guy. I didn't know him well, but he seemed down to earth and level-headed and frankly if anyone was going to steer me into the right direction, it would be him.

So I did it. I asked outfront.

“Is being gay a sin? Not that I'm gay. Just wondering. Because the media is all about that stuff and I have gay friends so I was wondering if I shouldn't be friends with them.” Smooth, Kal. Really smooth.

So he paused to think of his answer (he's the kind of person that pauses before speaking to get the most valuable answer) and I was scared of his answer. But ultimately what he said made me happy: he said no. And he used an example.

Say there are two couples: one couple is gay, the other is straight. Both couples are equally sinful or sinless. If one person from each couple cheats which is adultery and a sin, both will be equally sinful. The gay person won't be anymore sinful than the straight person. And then the people can work this out with their partner and all is well.

So the Lev. question came up. I think he was expecting that one and he even opened his Bible to nearly the right page. No really, he was two pages off and read me the quote about two men cannot lie together, that's an abomination. I wanted to see how he would deal with that. Clear as day. It says abomination. Granted, it's not one of the Ten Commandments, and it's only mentioned..maybe four times? But it's there nonetheless.

What he said really surprised me.

The Bible did not fall from the sky. It did not appear at random and people picked it up and read it. It was written by men for men. About men's experience and relationship with God. And one thing we need to remember is rules and regulations were different back then. That in that time period, yes, it was bad to lie with another man. Now the Bible isn't necessarily dated, as I asked. Some parts are, yes, hence all of the footnotes you can find on a single page, but the messages are still clear. My minister said if you're not getting a message of love, read it again because you're doing it wrong. The Bible is to teach people how to love and be kind. And that's extremely prominent in the New Testament. Which is what my minister later said- he told me to read the New Testament first. I was doing this whole thing in order, but he said the Bible is a library, not a series, you can pick it up at any book and understand it. While the Old Testament adds background and the New Testament makes reference to it, you can indeed read the New Testament on its own. And that's what I was told to do. And thus far (I'm not past Luke yet) I've only seen messages of love. That forgiveness is key. So far there has been nothing about hating gays or stoning people. In fact it's been the opposite of it thus far. I've only had messages of not stoning people because you're just as sinful as everyone else, you're not somehow better. It's humbled me which I suppose is good and furthermore, it has put me completely at ease for my sexual orentation. That at the end of the day, it doesn't matter who you're attracted to or who you love, it's about your deeds of love and kindness that outweigh it all.