By Justin Lee
For years, former leaders and “success stories” of the ex-gay movement have been coming out and saying that ex-gay ministries don’t really work as advertised.
But if that’s so, why are these ministries still as popular as they are, after all these years?
One of the main reasons has to do with faith. A 2007 Barna Group study found that 91% of young non-Christians and 80% of young churchgoers believe that Christianity is anti-gay. And yet, a 2003 study by Christian Community found that approximately 10% of churchgoing high schoolers identify themselves as gay, lesbian, or bisexual. Our churches are filled with LGBT young people who believe that their own faith is against them.
Why do they believe this? There are, of course, a handful of Bible passages that (according to some interpretations) cast negative light on same-sex relationships, but that doesn’t justify Christianity’s strong public reputation of being anti-gay. The Bible never says gay people must become straight. It never says gay people are worse sinners than anyone else. And a growing number of Christians believe that it doesn’t even condemn same-sex relationships at all when properly interpreted.
In reality, Christians are divided on Bible interpretation, and yet, the popular image of the church is that it’s not only united in its condemnation of gay people, but that it’s virtually obsessed with the subject. It’s no wonder, then, that gay kids in the church (and their parents) are willing to go to such great lengths to try to change their orientation.
But what would happen if gay-affirming Christians became more vocal? What if they could better articulate their love for gay people, and challenge this idea that gay people need to change?
We here at The Gay Christian Network want to make that happen.
Starting this weekend, we’re working with affirming churches from across denominational lines to begin a series of mini-conferences called “Reclaiming Christianity” as a way to take a stand. The events will include training in gay-positive Bible arguments, screening of a pro-LGBT Christian film called Through My Eyes, and group discussion on practical steps to take to combat homophobia in churches and local communities. We’d love the help of Ex-Gay Watch readers in getting the word out.
The kickoff event will be tomorrow, June 19, in Raleigh, NC. After that, events are scheduled in Indianapolis, Birmingham, Detroit, and Houston, with more to follow. The events are being sponsored by local LGBT-affirming churches in each of these cities, and organized by The Gay Christian Network, an interdenominational nonprofit organization serving LGBT and supportive Christians around the world.
If you’re interested, we’d love for you to be a part of what we’re doing. Details are on the conference website at ChristiansWhoLove.com.
In the meantime, I’m listening. What do you think affirming Christians should do to counter the anti-LGBT messages?
Guest author Justin Lee is the Executive Director of the Gay Christian Network.
goooo Justin……love your work
What can you do. Media, media and MORE media exposure. You need to be JUST as vocal as the other side, just not as obnoxious. 🙂
Hear! Hear!
The Bible and many other religious tomes have been used to justify a large array of human rights abuses.
In our modern age, when in fact, homosexuality ISN’T so exotic or doesn’t have to be and the integration of gay people into the most positive and structured aspects of cultured life, would settle a lot of the arguments the anti gay keep trying to force on everyone.
Gay people, of ALL members of the human race, shouldn’t be such strangers or forced to be. Shouldn’t be denied the empirical evidence, or giving it, of their own experience.
And most of all, self reliance and self determination is in the DNA of every human being.
What we most need, is to weed out those people of faith, who lose sight of that.
Being a Christian, Muslim or whatever…isn’t your license to be an insufferable control freak. If they’d paid attention, gay people are allies, not enemies.
Hi Anthony!
How have you been brother?
Hi Regan
all the latest news is here in my newsletter
…..that probably the easiest way to answer your question….hehe.
I’m not anti-gay but I’m not pro-gay either. However, I have noticed an alarming trend. Over the years there have been many devices to try to promote homosexuality. But one by one they were all found to be false. For example, remember when it was said that there is a gay gene? Well it has now been proven that there is no “gay gene”. Remember when they said that 10% of people are automatically gay? Well, guess that was a lie too. There is not a statistical “10% across the board” gay incidence rate. Time and time again it has been proven that homosexuality is a choice, and that is it. So what’s the problem? Well, people are still going around quoting the “gay gene” and “10% are gay” lies as if they were facts! This, as is all widespread deception and misinformation, is irrefutably causing harm to society.
No matter how much deception you throw at it, no one will ever be able to change the fact that the bible calls homosexuality a sin. It just does. The bible clearly states that it is a sin. There is no room for debate. The bible calls lust a sin too, is that up for debate as well?
Why do people try to pretend otherwise? I’ll tell you why. It’s because they want to justify their actions. IF you want to follow Jesus, you have to choose between His way, or the world’s way. You can’t have both.
Nate,
Frankly, what the Bible says or doesn’t, won’t change how it’s been used to commit human rights abuses. It just has.
There is no disputing that, and modern people would do well to reject anything that hints at it. Especially in a country founded on the principles of free choice in worship, and free choice not to.
Which is the importance of respect that of many, ONE culture can be formed from it’s best values.
There is no dispute that gay people have been a part of the human race since before that book was written and every other religious book. There is no dispute that we as a race, and as a country, have marched into more education, enlightenment and human interaction SINCE those ancient and reactionary and illiterate cultures were formed.
As a woman, I am acutely and justifiably suspicious of religious belief that strains to create rigid, unnatural boundaries of gender and misogynist principles, which is from which is from where homosexuality was MISINTERPRETED as something bad and who is homosexual destroyed..
Not all cultures believe the Bible or in Jesus as Savior. Nor do they have to.
And many cultures, believed, which is closer to scientific fact, that those who are a fusion of gender, have a spiritual value to understand men AND women better.
Blather all you want about what the Bible says. But unless you could ever read Abramaic Hebrew and Heleniac Greek, you really DON’T know what the Bible says.
However, the Constitution and Bill of Rights were written in OUR language, and on a few sheets of parchment.
We can all read it and understand it, with very little that can be abused or used to abuse.
I put my faith in THAT. And I’ll believe, and know the most qualified and best Christians I’ve ever known. Or any person of faith, are the ones that live the principle commandments of Christ or Buddha or Mohammed to treat another human being the way they’d want to be treated.
That is from where the most ethical and justice decisions and actions come.
And you, living in an age with all the gifts of technology, human contact and unlimited access to higher education, still want to fulminate about gay people as if living in a cave 2,000 years ago.
Boy, please.
You don’t impress with your conspiracy theory about gay people. We know there’s no gay gene.
There’s no heterosexual gene either.
There is no gene that determines sexual orientation.
Your ignorance of what gay people think or want to, is tiresome.
And the cowardice and disrespect you’re showing with your hit and run commentary, doesn’t do Jesus and Christianity any favors either.
After all, Jesus was an advocate for those without justice or understanding. He eschewed the powerful hierarchy and he chose to live among outcasts.
When I see Christians like you truly living in that way, instead of making excuses to lecture gay people on how THEY should live, I’ll believe you’re a good Christian. That’s the only way to show your qualifications for being one.
Nate’s post is a perfect example of disingenuous, muddled thinking on the issue of sexual orientation. I know I’m going to be accused of feeding the trolls, but I just can’t help it.
1. “I’m not ant-gay.” Um, actually you are. Like many well-intentioned but clueless Biblical traditionalists, Nate thinks that because he doesn’t personally do nasty things to gay people like insult them in person, yell at them or act like the Phelps clan, he believes he’s not anti-gay. But being nice is not the same as being good. If you consistently vote to deny basic protections to gay people–like the right to visit a sick partner in the hospital or to not be fired from a job simply because of who you are–at the ballot box, then yes… you are anti-gay.
2. No one–including the ever-present, mysterious “they”–has ever claimed that a gay gene absolutely exists. Rational scientists have suspected that sexual orientation is partially genetic based on various studies of twins, relatives, finger lengths and other biological factors. But it is a lie to say that everyone in the gay community believes that. We suspect it, but there is no absolute proof at this point. However, i doubt that even if there were a gay gene, it wouldn’t matter to you, anyway. Your real objection is that you claim the “Bible says it’s a sin.” So, your argument against genetics is disingenuous… even if there was 100% proof (and there isn’t 100% scientific proof of anything), you wouldn’t accept gay people as they are, anyway. So, why don’t you just be honest and admit your sole objection to gay people is your particular interpretation of the Bible?
3. “Time and again it has been proven that homosexuality is a choice.” Evidence please. I’m sure you’re just dying to share at least three of the multitude of scientific studies that have proven your assertion. (I’m being sarcastic, because none exists, you know it, but it feels soooooo satisfyingly self-righteous to say it.)
4. “The Bible clearly states that [homosexuality] is a sin.” Actually, in the original Hebrew and Greek, the answer isn’t very clear, and it depends on how you view the Bible within the culture in which it was written. But you knew that the Bible wasn’t written in English, right? You also know that the Greek words translated as “homosexual” in the New Testament have only been that way since 1946? Oh, you didn’t? Well, maybe you ought to study the history of Biblical translation… you might actually learn something.
I am convinced that the “God said it, I believe it, that settles it” Biblical literalists are people who are deathly afraid of thinking for themselves, for fear that God will send them to Hell for asking probing questions. They’re serving a pretty nervous and insecure God, if you ask me.
Thank you Christopher!
You articulated that beautifully and much better than my attempt.
I like to deal with this by the laws of what our world is. And NATE, here are some other choice realities for you.
1. All creation is abundant with variance, diversity and more than we could imagine existed. How can there be ONE sexual orientation that’s normal when there are usually more than one normal among living things?
2. Obviously, no human culture or history is exceptional in that there are no gay people, so debating about whether it’s biological, when a history like that points to that is HAS to be, a small isolated culture wouldn’t have known what we know now.
The Catholic Church jailed Galileo and punished and murdered the left handed, and geniuses. Goes to show that powerful religious entities are invested in ignorance and fear of the truth.
3. If you cared to analyze another reality beyond your narrow scope and the narrower definition of gay people, you might realize that gay people are the kind of part of humanity that could lend much to it’s survival. Men and women DON’T get along. Men are and have been brutal to women throughout the ages and still are. If anything, and it’s logical, our Creator included women and the transgendered as a tempering bridge between the sexes.
And contraceptive sexual attraction to keep our population under control and more civilized.
4. Perhaps YOU as a presumably straight man, can’t appreciate being able to have an intense, loving and intellectually good relationship with the opposite sex, but without all the sexual tension and drama that goes with it. It’s healthy, VERY refreshing and a lot of work to have a meeting of the minds on our world’s greater issue makes sense.
5. Our human lives tends to have a ‘ten percent’ aspect and rarer, but biological minority. Like left handers, geniuses, red heads and the extremely tall. I can imagine a primitive, less literate person having a moment of wonderment at what’s different. It’s declaring that difference, bad, evil and worthy of being punished and destroyed is where credibility is lost.
That’s not very rational, no matter WHAT you think of the Bible.
6. One directive of the teachings of Christ concern me, and time and time again…a lot of Christians fail it. Fail to center their outreach towards SERVICE, rather than DOMINANCE and CONTROL. I say again, the most ethical, just and CORRECT decisions regarding civilized behavior is EMPATHY. And avoiding empathy, is cowardly as it is dangerous. Gays and lesbians work to appeal to that empathy. And over and over again, people like YOU can’t even be bothered to LISTEN to the empirical evidence and experience with which gay folks can educate us all.
7. And it’s that listening and the first thought: ‘how would I feel if it was me?’ Should follow.
That is the essential difference between the gay hostile and the gay friendly. Having the courage and wisdom to know it’s not OUR lives being messed with. Once you listen to someone gay, you find that there is more in common than at odds, and that it’s a tragedy of wasted potential of a strong ally.
Nate, you’re only repeating WHAT YOU HEARD, not what you know.
And learning about gay people from non gay, anti gay people isn’t saying much about you.
You’d be offended, and rightly, if the reverse were true.
Why don’t you concede you ARE anti gay, because everything you heard if from an anti gay source. Listen to gay folks, work alongside without any other agenda but to listen, and THEN see what happens. ONLY then, you’ll realized how ignorant you are, and how wrong the writers of the Bible have been.
OOps, correction to #3.
I meant to say our Creator included homosexuality and transgenderism among mankind as a tempering factor.
Nate,
I’d like you to back up your statement on the Bible. Many of your liberal Christian opponents see those NT verses as pointing to Greek pederastry, not homosexuality.
In any case, I don’t buy what you’re selling, and I’m a straight theist. The evangelical church told me I couldn’t be saved because I’m mentally ill. I’m not going to buy the same lie twice. They gave me “biblical proof” too.
Regan: small correcton. you wrote “ONLY then, you’ll realized how ignorant you are, and how wrong the writers of the Bible have been.”
Translators of the bible is probably truer.
Oh!
My bad. You’re right Ben. Excellent correction and I thank you!
Thanks, Regan. However, in your defense, I should also add;
but the Writers of the Bible were also (and frequently) dead wrong, or at least, highly improbable.. From quirinius (sp) being six years too late or six years too early, — i can never remember which, only that it makes Jesus 12 years old and ready to Bar Mitzvah when he was “born as a man”– to answer to the question of “Who was Barabbas (hint: two words)– to the number of legs of insects– to the sudden appearance of a duck-billed playtpus in Canaan– to the rest of it.
Christopher, your comments to Nate– not that I think we’ll see him again– are bang on. I was thinking along somewhat similar lines. As an exercise, as a service to Nate, for the future of my book, should I ever write it– I’ll expound a bit. I’ve written some of this before in reference to the ideology that gay is bad. Ideology is merely the very ugly stepsister of belief.
Nate:
The problem with people like you (BTW, do you like how that sounds when it is applied to you, or to people like you?) is that you don’t understand the profound difference between Knowledge and Belief.
Belief IS Knowledge as long as it doesn’t bump uglies with Reality. As soon as it does that, Belief is revealed for the easy tart she is, changing the objects of her affectations at will. That is why so many Christians disagree with you Really Good Christians: their theological beliefs are not informed by their opinions.
A piece of advice from an older man: Don’t Believe Everything You Think.
What you don’t see is that although you very sincerely believe your religion, you don’t actually know very much about it. Can you answer the questions: “Who was Barabbas?” “Why is Quirinius important?” As Christopher pointed out, the word “homosexual” did not appear in a biblical translation until 1946. So much for timeless truths.
For people like you, Belief IS Knowledge. Consequently, because you think you understand something in your book that you believe to be true about a subject you have been told is homosexuality, at least as it might have been understood in a world 2000 years and 5000 miles away, well, now, that settles it. you’re an expert. You can say that homosexuality is sinful, deny us equal protection of the laws, treat our lives and relationships as if they are not of the slightest consequence, apply standards to us the you do not apply to yourself, disadvantage us as legally and socially as much as possible. And then you get to say cheerfully…
I’m not anti-gay. I’m not a bigot. I’m just delivering the word of god.
Even assuming that what these highly questionable verses are saying is in fact about homosexuality– quite an ideological assumption– I can certainly tell you one thing for sure:
Anti-gay people knew no more about homosexuality at that time than they do now. They know their fears– intimately. They know their beliefs– for now. What they don’t know are their asses from a hole in the ground when it comes to this subject. Quoting Richard Rush and gladly: “I think there is one aspect of observing the behavior of Christians today that can help us conclude some things about the writers of the Bible: When I look at the capacity for considerable delusion and superstition within people in today’s world of vastly greater knowledge than in Biblical times, I realize that the level of ignorance and superstition in those days had to have been many orders of magnitude greater.
But now, people like you will say “But these are our holy books. We know these books were written under the influence of the holy spirit. Of course, what we think they might say is true.” It’s just more belief, Nate. You WANT to believe it, so you know it. But this is where you also don’t know much about your religion. Let’s go to St. Paul. In one of his letters, he states that the congregation he is writing to should be wary of letters which are supposedly by him. They are forgeries. So forgeries, letters written without the assistance of the holy spirit, are being passed of as if they were.
But then, people like you will say, “But THESE are the REAL ones. The holy spirit saw to that. My belief remains intact.” Except that with all the discrepancies which exist between the various books that are in the ACCEPTED canon, the holy spirit was obviously multi-tasking– unsuccessfully.
If I told you someone is sleeping with your wife, you would insist on a much higher standard of proof than you would require for the nature of god’s message to the world, specifically as relates to his gay children.
Christianity claimed authority, knowledge, expertise, mandate, and relevance on the subject of homosexuality, a subject it clearly knows NOTHING about. In the whole of the bible, with the possible exceptions of Jonathan and David and the centurion and his boy slave, there is not one fulfilling, happy, nurturing same sex relationship. not one. Prurient, puritan Paul, may possibly have observed something on the subject–the guy with the un-named thorn in his flesh and a big issue with women– immersed as he was in the Greek and roman worlds of his time, but he didn’t mention it either, and what he did have to say was so vague and ambiguous that only an ideologue from either camp could assert positively that he said anything one way or the other. Abusers of themselves with mankind? I do it all the time, and I still don’t know what it means.
So Nate, if you really want to believe that your version of Christianity has authority, knowledge, expertise, mandate, and relevance on the subject of homosexuality, a subject it clearly knows NOTHING about– knock your self out. Be my guest. It’s your life.
But there is some thing you are forgetting in your scriptural pursuit of zeal– pardon, your zealous pursuit of scripture. You turn a blind I (pun intentional) to all kinds of not doing God’s commandments, unless you are out in front of Wal-Mart every Sunday protesting and I missed it. You might ask yourself why this is different, why this one gets you so exercised.
But what is really important here? It’s a truism I have observed repeatedly, though not universally. The more someone claims to be a good Christian, ones that wish to use their beliefs to control others, the less likely they are to actually BE Christians…
…except in name only.
Here’s what Jesus had to say about homosexuality, whether as understood in his time or in ours. And believe me, they are not the same.
(crickets chirping).
Here’s what he said about judging others: Judge not, look not for the speck, let he among you, do as you would be done by, love one another, love thy neighbor, speak the truth, don’t proclaim your religion but keep it private.
So, here you are, proclaiming your Christianity, and ignoring what your founder explicitly told you NOT TO DO. Are you out feeding the children. He said to. Do you protest at divorce proceedings– he said no divorce. You might ask yourself–AGAIN– why this is different, why this one gets you so exercised.
Isn’t that just amazing? You speak at length about what God and Jesus want, on the basis of nothing else but your opinion about something you don’t understand, and yet I suspect that you don’t have an answer to this simple question:
What part of “Judge not lest ye be judged” does not apply to a Christian such as yourself?
So, Nate, you are indeed just another drive by Christian.
Do you have the balls to ocme back and stand up for what you believe? Or are you thinking “Those people are already lost to Jesus, so I’ll be Little Miss Sonshine somewhere more congenial?
although Nate is undoutedly just another Christian troll, I’ll add my 2¢ anyways:
No one I know of, either gay or gay-supportive, touts the “gay gene” or “10%” canard. The last I had heard these I was in my high school GSA. 10 years ago. Among teenagers with no scientific training.
People say “genetic factors/biological affects/intrauterine influences” and “2-3%” these days. But I never hear anyone say “gay gene” or “10%,” hoping to seriously prove something. The only people who DO still tout these phrases are people like Nate – Christian or anti-gay bigots hoping to “prove” that since things people used to say at one point in time are now wrong, being gay can be turned off like a lightswitch.
I dont’ even need to address the “homosexuality is a choice” canard. Jeez, even Exodus doesn’t say THAT anymore.
I’m sure there are a few LGBTQ (and supportive) people out there who still toss out the 10% figure. It’s a comforting statistic, and I can see why people might still hold to it, especially if they hear it and never hear any of the criticisms or more accurate data. But Emily is right, it’s far less common to hear anyone on the supportive side cite it today than it was several years ago.
And the only people who talk about a “gay gene” — on either side of the issue — are people whose exposure to genetics never went beyond learning about Mendel’s famous pea experiments(*) when they were in high school biology class. The thing is, it’s the rare trait that is only controlled or influenced by only one gene. And plenty of traits, while genetically influenced, are also influenced by other biological and/or environmental factors. (As I understand it, one of the fastest ways to get a high school biology teacher all tongue-tied is to ask him to explain how eye color in humans is determined.) So there are plenty more ways — both complex and subtle — for genetics to influence something like sexual orientation.
(*) In fact, the only reason Mendel’s pea experiments worked out so perfectly is that he “lucked out” (according to one university professor and botanist I know, Mendel actually “fudged” his experiments to make this happen) by choosing eight traits that each happened to be on different chromosomes from each other. If that had not been the case, then the outcomes for each trait in successive generations would not have been completely independent from one another. Just a bit of trivia.
Wow they must be having a fire sale at the propaganda outlet because you guys are buying it by the truckload! Well, it’s all been said before and none of it can hold up under close scrutiny so you’ve wasted your time. Besides, I wasn’t talking to you, per se, I was talking to the ones you are trying to deceive with this website. Look, we all know that I could take the time to answer each question, but you would never accept the facts coming from me. Your mind is, how you say, “closed”? You would simply find a blog post or some website that tells you exactly what you want to hear and accept THAT instead. Right? Absolutely right! Even if I did the work for you and provided you with facts, proofs, evidence, references, etc. that each pointed irrefutably to one underlying conclusion: “Homosexuality is a choice” you still would not accept it. I’ve already done all the research and found all the facts and I assure you, they are out there if you look. (objectively!!)
So… in the end, all I can do is tell you the Truth, in the hopes that you’ll actually LISTEN, not to me, but to your response, to your gut, your heart, your spirit, or, hey, even God Himself, rather than let your flesh (AKA natural lusts) tell you that what IT craves is more important than what God wants. But do you even care about what God wants? What is so important about being “gay” that you’ll twist or allow others to twist the Word (which hasn’t changed in over 2500 years) to suit your own desires?
Let’s all place a disproportionate amount of emphasis on the fact that you simply enjoy sticking your.. oh never mind… never mind.. carry on…. Yes, ejaculatory endorphines are SO IMPORTANT! Let’s devote our entire lifestyle to THEM!
Seriously? That’s your destiny? Just think about it.
Oh no, Nate. By all means, please go there. Please demonstrate once again that most anti-gay people like you probably spend more time thinking about my sex life than I do. (And yet, I’m somehow the one with a problem?)
oh, well if the only reasons Nate can come up with are religious ones based on his personal unprovable beliefs, we’re all in the clear.
Nate, how bout some shots at lesbians and queer girls like me? What exactly are we sticking and where? all the conservative Christian obsession with the Almighty Phallus™ really gets old. You’re right, Jarred, “straight” boys like Nate spend waaaay too much time thinking about your penis. Much more than you do (or your boyfriend does/would), I’m sure.
@Nate
Yours is the kind of rhetoric which many here will recognize as more telling of your own issues than those you hate (and trust me, what you express is hatred). I suggest you find a way to avoid loathing your own sexuality before you end up hanging out in bathroom stalls and back alleys, or worse.
Further response would be pointless since you haven’t given any facts to debate, and supporting evidence from an authoritative source is necessary to make such bold statements here. Plenty of people have expressed opposing views here over the years, and they have done so in a civil manner with respect for others. This lies in stark contrast to the way you have acted as a guest of this site.
If you wish to continue, please make some changes.
Wow, Nate.
Are you planning on saying something like that to me too? Because, as someone who presumably isn’t a gay person, you seem to consider yourself now well informed…you’ve done ALL the research and now you feel free to say it’s gay people that don’t know what they are talking about and have nothing to contribute to instructing anyone on who they are or what they think?
Nate, I’m a black woman. I dare you to say now that you’ve done ALL the research and you’re now not only expert on what a black woman thinks and feels, but you know all about how racism or misogyny is all in our heads too.
When I want to learn about certain types of people, doing research is with the source.
In other words, if I want to know about being Jewish, Jewish life and the context of what Jews think of themselves and their history with non Jews…I go to Jews.
Not non Jewish, anti Semites.
Same goes for knowing about being gay, and what it means and feels to be gay and what the experience is like among those ignorant of you…I go to gay people Nate.
And there is no better source for understanding and a meaningful experience and empirical wisdom and research.
So, a gay person educating you honestly and forthrightly isn’t ANTI heterosexual. Indeed, there is always a strange reaction from people like you that if the discussion or aim is for equal access to gay people being included, or married or acknowledged, it’s at the expense of heterosexuals.
Sometimes conversations on race get that same treatment.
No one has to hate anybody to acknowledge the legitimacy of a contribution being made about experience.
But frankly Nate, gay people know a lot more about heterosexuals than the other way around.
And it’s not gay people who want to see heterosexuals disappear, as we all know the converse is true.
And living in peace doesn’t seem to be an option for gay people, no matter what they do.
So, erring on the side of right, is why treating all human beings equally and assuming equal potential to do good is the proper opening standard to a civilized culture.
I don’t know why heterosexuals think they can put in such hostility, distrust, poisonous assumptions and extreme threat into a gay person, and roses are supposed to come out.
Did it not occur to you Nate, the difference between action and reaction?
Gay people didn’t create anti gay sentiment, or misogyny and make it the basis of many cultures the world over.
But I digress.
When you going to tell me how much more you know about being a black woman, because you’ve done all the research?
Oh…and considering that you threw God into the mix….let me put it this way.
I’m sick of God and God’s name being hijacked to rationalize being brutal to another person.
Morals is about how you treat another person. The foundation of justice and morals is empathy, NOT control and dominance.
You’ve got God made out to be a vengeful, abusive parent. And many others have made God out to be a misogynist, anti homosexual tyrant. Made God out to be a white man’s champion, and the personal conduit of the rich.
Boy, please. Talk about making God into man’s hateful, arrogant image. Belief in God, is belief is SERVICE, based on the ethical law of justice and empathy towards another human being.
Belief in God is rejoicing in all the diversity, expansion of knowledge and understanding as our world gets less exotic and bewildering and fearful to us. Belief in God is to trust that all this abundant variation among living and non living things is for our eyes to most appreciate and hunger to learn more.
You are exceptionally INCURIOUS Nate, and stopped learning about gay people where your figure God told you to stop.
God is not in the Bible, but right before you in all the things that makes each of us unique, different and capable of more than hiding behind some very primitive reactionary principles.
You’re not advanced enough for this Nate. You aren’t as informed as you like to think and you’ve proven it.
We here in XGW are actually far more influenced by what people think limits us. We, being members of misunderstood, hidden and underestimated minorities, have to go about being in the world different than what you got without earning it.
WE earned it, you didn’t. WE appreciate what we have with each other, YOU don’t.
What a sorry person you are that you’re in a beige, bland, paint by numbers life. And you’re trying to shrink us, because YOUR life is so shrunken.
And you’re too arrogant to understand that.
IF you have enough imagination to think that maybe you DON’T know what you’re talking about. You’d actually be a better person.
But I don’t think you’re that better person.
I don’t really laugh out loud at people like you. It’s rude.
But if the stakes weren’t so high, you’d be comic relief after the day I had at work.
LOL! It’s true. It might seem cruel to laugh about but for goodness sakes, people like Nate bring it on themselves. We don’t live in the seedy, dank, sewer sex culture ’70’s anymore, “straight” people. stop pushing yourself into that lifestyle when you have other options.
Nate honey, you DID come back. Wow.
and then you wrote: “you’ll twist or allow others to twist the Word (which hasn’t changed in over 2500 years) to suit your own desires?”
Wow. Then that whole bit with Jesus was just a blip on the radar. Let me tell you. Things changed radically aorund 70AD. And that whole Martin Luther thing? Hardly owrth mentioning.
As I said to you earlier, and to which you did not have the courtesy to repsond– you don’t know really very much, and noyt aobut your own religion. Your authority on the subject of homosexuality must be about the same as your religious authority.
You who are not homosexual, know far more about it than we do. You also know the mind of god, intimately. And we’re victims of propaganda?
If your smug, self assured ignorance will let you, Look up megalomania and get back to me, willya?
Nate – may I please remind you that it is the Kindness of God (and not the Judgments of Men) that leads people to change the way they think about things. At least that’s the way it has been in my experience. I rebel against rules and regulations, but the Love of God melts me and changes me. I used to be really comfortable with the black and white of the Law but I continue to abandon that in favor of the gray of Grace. Paradoxically, my judgments against others were/are as sinful as the sins I was judging. How well I know it is difficult to love others and to leave the judging to God! But that is the example Our Lord has left for us to follow. God Bless Everyone, k
Damn. I was all set for nate to come back and explain how we were allvictims of propaganda, and he was all ready to lead us into the light.
Megalomania much?
Actually, since he had all the proof, was not going to make some money out of it, and apparently has no political aspirations, I was wondering why he is so invested in believing that being gay is a choice.
And then I realized….
Nate claims that he’s primarily “talking to the ones you are trying to deceive with this website.” If he’s so deeply concerned about deception (which I would assume he believes sends people to eternal Hell), one would think he would take the time to post links to all the overwhelming evidence that supports his position on homosexuality. I mean, c’mon… People’s souls are at stake!
But alas, it’s not worth his effort to do so. That attitude alone puts the lie to Nate’s so-called concern for others. So, if he doesn’t really care about others’ spiritual futures to make any effort to support his positions, and he doesn’t agree with the posts on this blog, why is he here?
My guess is that he likely lives an ordinary, boring, unremarkable life, so he goes online to share Truth™ in an environment he knows (or hopes) is openly hostile. This way, he can be “persecuted” for his faith and feel like he’s making a difference for God, especially if he’s a practicing ex-gay who isn’t experiencing much change in his own life.
So… I apologize for feeding the troll.
Yep, like I said…he’s beige, bland and paints God by numbers….(yawn)