Yesterday I got an email from Jeremy “JB” Burgess, the nighttime deejay for Air1 Radio. Prompted by the link to a Relevant Magazine article called “Christian and Gay?” that JB has placed on his Facebook fan page, a married Christian man had written to JB about his secret struggles with his homosexual desires.
Aware that lately I’ve been blogging a bit about the relationship of Christians and Christianity to homosexuality, JB (knowing he could trust me to keep it absolutely confidential) shared the man’s letter with me, inquiring as to how I might respond to it. In the course of our ensuing conversation, I related that in my experience it’s proven helpful for people to simply (and however anonymously) share their story with others. Because I knew the letter’s author would get a lot of love and support from my readers, I told JB that if he cared to, he could offer to the reader my blog as a platform for sharing and receiving input on his letter.
Jeremy thought that a good idea. And so, in my inbox this morning, I found the following letter:
Hi John,
I wrote the email below to JB in reference to an article he linked on his FB page. He suggested that I let you know of what I shared with him, as you have been writing on your blog a lot lately about the issue of homosexuality. I have done some initial reading on your site, and it has been helpful. You’re welcome to copy this and post it if you wish. I would love to hear some positive comments from your readers. I’m also prepared for some negative responses as well. Thanks for listening. I’m ready to move forward.
Hi there JB,
I’m a friend of yours on Facebook. I was reading one of your posts yesterday from the article in Relevant Magazine. Thanks for sharing it. It is actually forcing me to deal with a part of my life that I haven’t.
I’m am married man with kids who my whole life has lived with homosexual tendencies. Scared and still am for most of my life of someone finding out. I have hidden it, and no one in my straight life knows of this side of me. The main reason is for some of the exact responses you received from the post.
I don’t understand why I was born with this—and yes, I feel it is something you are born with, and not something you can get rid of if you want. I’m not sure why I’m emailing you with this, except for the fact that I could use prayer! I can’t tell you the number of times I have cried in desperation to be rid of this, but for whatever reason it is here in my life. I have acted on the tendencies in the past a few times, and fallen to my knees afterward.
I have heard that if those who are like me would just trust Christ, he will take it away. I have reflected on this, and I think it’s not that I don’t trust Christ, but that I don’t trust myself to turn it over. I have read my Bible more, and prayed more to be straight. I don’t feel that I have the strength to let it go. I don’t think it would magically go away, although I wish it would. I think what my desire would be is to find healing, find an accountability partner, and someday even be someone who could counsel those who suffer from.
It’s so hard doing this alone, and it’s not like I can walk up to someone at church and say, “Hi, I struggle with homosexual tendencies, and I would love prayer.” I fear I would be thrown out of the church, let alone what it would do to my family. My world is straight. I have served on the church board, sang in the worship team, worked with the youth. I don’t know what I would call myself, except a follower of Christ who has scars and has tried to do it alone for too long.
By you posting this I think it has given me the courage to at least tell this to you, although it’s anonymous. I had to do this, if for nothing else to say I’m gaining the strength to someday accept who I am, and it doesn’t mean I’m any less loved by Christ. I’m not sure if I’m rambling or making sense. It is challenging to write of this, as this is the first time I have faced it in this manner.
Thanks for being used by God!
Thanks for listening.
Anguishing.
I’m going to offer a piece of advice to our new friend, and then throw his letter open for comments. I know this goes without saying, but please respond in the spirit of gentle, supporting love. I know you guys will do nothing less. That’s why I invited him over here.
To our new friend:
You’re going through a gruelingly difficult time; thank you for letting me and my readers share it with you. Lots of struggles in the road ahead of you, lots of valleys and mountains for you to traverse.
I’m not actually keen on giving specific advice before I’m more familiar with the details of a situation than of course I am right now with yours. But even at this point, I think it’s safe to say that you must share this struggle with your wife.
You can lie to the church; you can lie to your friends; you can lie to your parents; you can even (for a while) lie to your children. You can lie to everybody—but not to your wife. She deserves to know of this—and you deserve to have her know of it. By not sharing this with her, you are tricking her into living a lie. Doing that is infinitely worse than anything you could ever do in the gay department.
Tell her, buddy. She might surprise you. She might have a few secrets of her own she’d love to get off her chest. You never know. But you do know that if, by way of protecting yourself, you continue to allow the person who has entrusted you with her life to believe that she’s living one life while in fact she’s living another, you will go to your grave burning with the regret of having caused and perpetrated that tragedy. Don’t do that to yourself; and do not do it to her. However long you’ve been keeping this from her is long enough. Share! She’s your wife; your partner; your mate. She’s your friend. If she loves you, she’ll want above all to be part of everything you go through. If she doesn’t love you—or if she freaks out and decides she doesn’t once you’ve told her about this, or however she might respond—then, yes, you’ll have to deal with every last bit of that. But at least all your cards will be on the table. At least you’ll then be playing an honest game.
Remember what Christ said: The truth will set you free. If you believe anything Christ ever said, please believe that.
![John Shore on The Huffington Post](http://johnshore.files.wordpress.com/2010/03/huffpost.jpg?w=120 "John Shore on The Huffington Post\")
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My ex-husband of 10 years confessed to being a porn and sex addict. I found evidence which our Pastor agreed was homosexual evidence. My ex admitted to being into child porn and eventually my kids told me their Dad was sexually abusing them. I have forgiven him only because I Love Jesus more than my ex. I could have even taken him back but if was how he handled the situation that destroyed me. Pride, Anger and Fear from the pit of HELL causedt him to try to destroy me and my two surviving children’s lives. He tried to make me look crazy and got full custody of the two most precious and sweet children on the planet who I risked my life carrying and giving birth to. Through all this the courts forced me to take unnecessary drugs but it was these drugs that helped me to see. Because of the drugs I was unable to make Godly decisions. Though a virgin on my Honeymoon I fell into sexual sin myself and a Homosexual demon came upon me for the first time in my life. At the time I was dating one of the sexiest men on the planet who I later found out also struggled with homosexuality perhaps due to excepted childhood abuse and the demon Pornia. Either way I quickly went to the elders at church and they delivered me of many demons. The homosexual demon is a NASTY one when it comes on you it literally reprograms your brain and you “think” that you were born that way. I am living proof that this is not true and there is a better way! Please pray that God gives this former stay at home Mom and Gymnastics coach money so I can get custody of my kids back and train them in what God has taught me. If you don’t believe in Angels or demons then ask God to show you and he will!
Hi! I am also currently suffering the same ailment. I am 16, and for over a year now, I have been brushing aside these weird homosexual tendencies. I’ve had numerous girlfriends, and I shutter at the thought of ever doing something with another male, but I find myself drawn to it through porn. (which is a whole other problem I need to deal with.)
(Let the record show I also watch straight porn, to whoever is interested haha.) I’m hoping it’s just a phase courtesy of those ever-changing, always-fluctuatuing hormones of mine, but I’m worried I may end up having this problem throughout the course of my life. I relish the idea of someday settling down with a wife and having a good, Catholic family, but I don’t want this to interfere. I find it is changing my very nature. I don’t know what caused these feelings to surface, but ever since I first noticed them, I’ve also noticed I’m more moody and short-tempered. I’m completely confused and absolutely lost, and I don’t know where to turn. I have a weird, uncomfortable relationship with my mom (Who I live with) and I have a little bit more comfortable relationship with my dad (Who lives an hour away, but I see him every week.) so I don’t really want to talk it over with them. What should I do? I need assistance, pronto. Thanks for reading!
Hey Andrew!
The first thing you should do, IMHO, is relax. Why would you “need assistance pronto”? You’ve got plenty of time for figuring yourself out. It often takes a while to really get to know someone—when it comes to knowing the man that God has in mind for you to become, it’s no different, and you are only getting started!
And that’s okay, it’s not like there’s going to be a test on it on Monday! You’re not about to flunk out of life simply because you haven’t really felt this certain kind of feeling where you just KNOW that someone precisely who God meant for you to be with. Maybe you’ll only feel that way about girls, or maybe only guys, or maybe you’re bisexual. There is really no rush to define yourself. In fact, you don’t EVER have to define yourself unless you want to, Andrew. It’s just something other people need to do, to squeeze you into a box inside their head, so they can sort out and make sense of a world of endless complexities, a world we are all little bitty pieces of. And if you want to help them out by giving them a label to stick to you.. well.. you’ll know that when you know it.
It seems you understand that this really only matters insofar as the person you partner with in life is a major factor determining what kind of life that will be. But you know what? The kind of life a person has in mind for themselves when they’re your age, if they even think very far ahead at all (and I think it’s good that you do), it’s almost never quite how life turns out in the end! (And how BORING would it be if it were?) Maybe in your case you’ll settle down some day with a HUSBAND and have a good, Catholic family (never mind what a dwindling number doubters and haters might say)! You certainly would not be the first to have done so!
BUT… since you did say you shudder at the idea of actually doing it with another dude, more likely than not, you’re a straight, teenage guy who’s just looking to spice up his pornographic pallet with some more exotic flavors. It wouldn’t be the least bit unusual for that to be the case. In fact, I wouldn’t say it would be the least bit unusual to find you humping a nice, comfy sofa! I don’t know if there’s a word for having a sexual preference for sofas, but that certainly wouldn’t mean you have one! What it would mean you have is testosterone, and I do know a word for young men with healthy levels of testosterone coursing through their veins; that word is: horny. You’ll get used to it.
That, and a certain amount of uncertainty in life. That is, you’ll grow more comfortable not having it all figured out, too. All you really need to know is that everything’s gonna be fine, whichever way it works out for you. As long as God’s in control, Andrew, it’s all good.
I feel so much better now. I can’t thank you enough!
Hi Andrew,
I am 46 years old and I have struggled with this all my life since I was 9 years old. Your problem is with the fact that you don’t have a close relationship with your Dad. Your looking at gay porn because in your inner most being is crying out for male affirmation. Your 16 years old and you need to be affirmed by your Dad or some other fatherly figure that will not take advantage of you sexually. You need to bond with your Dad and spend more time with him. You don’t need to tell him about you looking at gay porn, that is not important because when you get close to your Dad or a fatherly figure that will lead you into manhood that stuff will fall away. I loved my Dad but we never connected. Dad had 16 children and not one of them got close to him at all because he was unapproachable. He had personal issues that he never dealt with, issues with his dad. He was angry all the time. Every little thing sparked his anger and God helped you if you were caught in his rage. A great provider, gave us a roof over our heads, lots of food, all kinds of land to roam around on, but he was a stranger in his own house. And he never knew the things that were going on between brother and sister, between brother and brother. And when I confessed to my Mother what was going on, he was not supportive at all. Nothing was done about it. No healing, no bonding, no love from him helped me to change my sexually. He had the power to do that, but I was left alone to struggle with my own issues and when I left home I journeyed into a far country seeking affirmation from men who were too willing to be a “fatherly” figure for the sole purpose of having sex and I welcomed it because by that time I was too far gone…….I was and still am to some degree a mess. As Christian I still dabble with gay porn and masturbation. My desires and wiring are all out of whack. When I desire sex, I desire men. The thought of women is repulsive, to me it’s like touching your Mother inappropriately. I have digressed. Your in a critical time of your life where the final stages of your manhood are being developed and you need to be strengthened by the affirmation from your Dad. Does your dad accept you readily or does he push you away? Even if he is a drunk, you can still bond with him. Just don’t take on his habits. My Mother bonded with her drunk father but she is not a drunk.
Karl,
There is absolutely nothing wrong with you sexually–except for your extreme self-loathing. It sounds like you’ve been taken advantage of and ignored, and for that I am profoundly sorry. People have failed you in some horrible ways, but they haven’t twisted or warped you beyond repair.
In fact, there is nothing wrong with you at all. You are whole, perfect, and wonderful just the way you are. There is no need to be ashamed anymore.
“In fact, there is nothing wrong with you at all. You are whole, perfect, and wonderful just the way you are. There is no need to be ashamed anymore.”
Matthew, how are you wording that? Are you saying that it’s okay to be homosexual, or are you saying that I am a whole, perfect and wonderful person in Christ Jesus”?
I am saying both. I won’t explain my entire history to you (long story, not worth getting into), but I am a happy and thriving member of the LGBT community and a Christian.
Unfortunately, Karl is not interested in being a happy, fulfilled LGBT Christian like you and so many other awesome people I am privileged to know. He’d rather spew misinformed judgments masquerading as concern and empathy.
My patience with Karl has come to an end.
You’re right of course, Jill. I knew it was pointless to try and reach him from the start.
But all the same, I wanted to try. It’s such a shame. Such a loss. Such a waste.
But kudos to you for your efforts– you possess way more patience than I do. Maybe I’ll learn how from your example, and someday it’ll stick!
Maybe it’s simply because I hear all the hate first-hand, and it affects me personally. I have very little difficulty putting myself in Karl’s shoes, because I fight the very same impulses to hate myself, the desires to be “normal,” thinking that I am less than.
He and I really aren’t that different. I was just lucky to have some very sane, loving people teach me and guide me.
Jill, How can any Christian be tolerant towards sin. I am gay oriented because I can’t help myself. But I know it’s a sin because that is how God defines it. If I were to accept the gay lifestyle and go all hog into it, I would have to delete God out of my conscience. The god that you supposedly serve in your sin is my devil. Your god is not the god of the bible, your god is a tolerant god that deletes portions of the word of God to suit your way of thinking. Proverbs 16:25 There is a way that seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death.
I do not want my way of thinking, I want God to change my thinking to the mind of Christ. And if that makes me a bigot, or narrow minded, or an idiot, I’d rather have all of that then miss God. Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths. Proverbs 3:5,6
This is how I know that gays and lesbians are not trusting in the Lord with all their hearts is because they are defending the flesh. Paul said the “Flesh profits nothing, but the Spirit profits life and peace”. Jesus said, “If you will not deny your flesh and take up the cross and follow me, you have no part of me”. But the gay lifestyle is all flesh. Seeking rights from governments to change laws to suit their own agenda. Jesus said, “If my kingdom was of this world than my servants would fight”. But we are not of this world, therefore, it’s not important if we try to change it. Even though some groups in Christianity are trying to do the same thing, they too are in the flesh seeking to find favour with man instead of God’s divine favour seeing that God rains on the Just and the Unjust. My words are seen as hate literature. Well., I don’t see them as that. Because I know that I don’t hate homosexuals. Personally, I don’t really care what they do, but if the issue is shoved in my face I am going to respond. So I say, if you see your lifestyle as okay, have at it, only the illumination of the Holy Ghost is going to convince you otherwise. P.S. No venom was used in the writing of this letter. 99/44 100% was purely a delight nature.
I will not try to convince you otherwise. It’s clear that I cannot.
However, hear this: Neither can you convince me otherwise. I have heard your words before, from doctors as they held me down and forcibly drugged me, from my family as they silenced me, from the rest of the world as they ignored me. The message never changes: I am not who I say I am. What I say happened to me did not happen. How I say I feel is not real. That it would be best if I just went into a corner and became silent.
Well, I won’t stand for that anymore. My words may not matter, but I am saying them anyway. You may not understand all that I say, but I don’t say it for your benefit. I am not dead, I am not someone to be mourned for, I am not a demon, I am not a tranny, dyke, or faggot, I am not an object of sexual pleasure, I am not insane, I am not delusional.
I am a child of God, precious beyond measure. And I am a person.
I am afraid I have become angry. If you feel that what I have said in inappropriate, John, feel free to delete this comment. I should know better than to have fed a fundamenalist.
Good for you. <3
“I am not dead, I am not someone to be mourned for, I am not a demon, I am not a tranny, dyke, or faggot, I am not an object of sexual pleasure, I am not insane, I am not delusional.”
Good for you!
By the way, What is a fundamentalist?
[pretentious psuedo-intellectual fundy posturing deleted.]
[really just sad--but vicious--comment deleted]
You have not offended me. We simply disagree; that is not offensive.
I don’t feel like I am “serving two masters,” because I am not representing any kind of “agenda.” I can only represent myself; I am simply a member of the LGBT community. I don’t believe I am being used by either the Christian circles I run in or the LGBT circles. I feel no disconnect within myself, no schism, no nagging sense that I shouldn’t be doing this. In fact, I feel better since reconciling my Christian self with my LGBT self, as both of these self-aspects are very important to me.
I appreciate your concern, but it is unnecessary. I am happy and well as I am.
There’s no humility in this comment, FTC. Don’t kid yourself that you’ve said this out of kindness. You said this from judgment. You want to exclude LGBT people from Christianity, that’s on you. But that has nothing to do with God’s will.
How about you find your own path of righteousness and assume that the rest of us upright bipeds can figure it out quite well for ourselves.
[comment deleted]
I kid myself quite a lot in fact. That I believe in God’s love over Law, for instance. That I believe that someone else’s experience and communing with God and with scripture is their own, and it is not up to me to judge it, question it, throw scripture verses in their face over it, etc.
I kid myself into believing that LGBTQI people deserve their own unique place at God’s rich, abundant table, and that I hope that my friends feel just as welcomed to sit down next to me there as I do. I kid myself in to thinking that Christians can someday quick get over their narrow view of what God finds acceptable when I rest my heart on God because of 1 John telling me that God is love, not God is judge, jury, and prosecutor.
But then, you’re probably right FTC, and a loving, open-hearted, welcoming person like me probably doesn’t fit in with righteously informed, scripture-loaded Christians such as yourself. I’m probably kidding myself into thinking that Christianity has a place for me too.
Thanks for setting me straight on the true nature of Christ’s love, FTC. You’ve just made my Easter complete.
“My comment to Matt had more than enough enough humility than anything that you have said on this blog site.”
So….a sign of humility is pointing out that he has way more of it than you do? I had no idea there was some kind of competition among the humble and the call to point out where *their* humility is better or occurring more frequently. That seems pretty ego-driven to me, it was always my understanding that humility wasn’t terribly interested in how it showed up and/or compared itself with others.
(those were FTC’s words, not Jill’s
)
You seem far more interested in defending yourself and the “love and respect” you’re insisting that you’re demonstrating instead of demonstrating that you’re here to listen with a willingness to change your mind. You’ve already decided that Matt has some kind of agenda but with all due respect, it’s clear that you have the agenda – you believe you’re the real teacher of the Bible here and that you’re here to set everyone straight. That, my friend, is what a real agenda is. And you’ve got one. Just own up to it.
FTC you’re not actually suggesting that you have the discernment to separate the “sheep from the goats”, are you? Are you actually saying that your faith provides you with the confidence to identify who is a christian? Why would you put yourself on par with the Holy Spirit that way? The Bible gives no one the authority to do so, as much as you think that your interpretation allows you that freedom. You are in terribly dangerous spiritual waters as you try to determine who is in the Book of Life based on a theological disagreement you’re having. Clearly Matt knows who he is before Christ, he doesn’t need your endorsement that he’s a new creation in Christ.
Bad advice–DON’T share this with your wife. She’s the last person you should say anything to. I’ve seen a number of Christian guys’ lives destroyed by well-intentioned sharing of their bisexual or homosexual desires with a spouse or pastor. That doesn’t mean to keep it to yourself–the best suggestion is to try to find a sympathetic Christian buddy (even if it has to be online). They are out there, though tough to find!
Bad advice.
I disagree. I agree he should tell his wife but he should also go to prayer and ask the LORD for the right timing to tell her. Just simply ask the LORD to “open up a door for me to speak to her”. There are perfect moments and God alone knows those times and we must trust Him and you will know when that time comes………….you’ll know! So keep it a secret until God opens the door. Even if she blows up or goes into a tirade, it’s still the perfect moment. When God changed the languages of those building the Tower of Babel, it instantly brought confusion, but people found each other that spoke the same language and the dust settled and people moved on. When we trust in God, the dust will fly, the feathers will get ruffled, the sh*t will certainly hit the fan, but things settle down, fans get washed, feathers are swept up and the dust no longer gets swept under the carpet it gets thrown out and then the Son of Righteousness comes with Healing in His Wings to restore, refresh, renew your marriage. You may still struggle, but as you struggle, you tell your wife and she will be there to comfort you. Something in your past caused all this to happen and you will need to explore it and find out what it is.
Sometimes if you’re attracted to the same sex, it doesn’t mean you’re not also attracted to the opposite sex. Some people are bisexual, some are gay. They’re two different kinds of orientations.
If you’re married and you really love your spouse and have found them sexually attractive, there’s no reason to think that your marriage is invalid or something is wrong just because you might be attracted to other people, regardless of the gender of the other people you’re attracted to.
Just thought I’d point that out. And I’m sure any success story out there about a ‘gay’ man or woman turned straight, that isn’t full of horrible anguish, is really about a bisexual man or woman who is just turning down half the fruitful, loving relationships they could have.
There’s certainly nothing wrong with either kind of relationship, but I just thought I’d point out that for people who are already married and realise they have a lot of different kinds of attractions, it doesn’t necessarily mean anything is wrong with the marriage.
Homosexual orientation or attractions don’t change. I have kmown about gay since I
was five years old , now I am 58.
God loves me and loves you.
No one is perfect.
I also struggle with Homosexuality myself. I am a 41 year old single man and I have struggled with this emotional disorder for the vast majority of my life. The struggle is never easy. It is always a difficult battle each and every day. Your desires for members of your own gender is at war with what you really want to do, which is the right thing. The vast majority of us know what the Holy Bible says about the sexual activity that is associated with the condition and why God destroyed the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah before his son Jesus Christ even came to walk the earth. While the Holy Bible itself doesn’t condemn the condition, it only condemns the sexual activity associated with the condition. We still have to keep in mind that God made man and woman for a reason. God never intended for sexuality to be the way that it is being used today by everybody in the world we are living in at the moment.
In early 2003, I started reading books by both Christians who successfully overcame Homosexuality and books by secular authors. I had learned the root causes of why I am struggling with Homosexuality and maybe there are other men who struggle with this emotional condition that also had it’s roots in this as well. The vast majority of Homosexual men never really got the full love and gender affirmation by their fathers as fathers are really supposed to do that when it comes to their children, especially sons. When I read that in many of the books, this was me. My father never gave me his love and affirmation and all he ever did was call me names and insult me, but the worst part of it was when I was physically and emotionally abused by him and using his religion “Born-Again Christianity” as an excuse as well as this repeated phrase; “If I don’t do this, it would show that I didn’t love you”. I suffered this for 9 months during the time that I was in between the ages of 8-9 years of age when I was living with him for a brief time. While that was only the root causes of why I struggle with this, there were also other contributing factors like sexual abuse. At age 7, a man in my neighborhood actually masturbated in front of me. At 10 years of age, a 16 year old kid talked me into performing oral sex on him. The worst was when I was 16 years of age, when another man in my neighborhood raped me. There were also other instances when I was used by other males for their own pleasure and it all really messed me up. I am still struggling to this day and the struggle does seem unbearable at times. I am conflicted between my desires and doing what I know is the right thing to do. I want to do the right thing, but my body and desires want me to do the opposite. I also was once a follower of a religious cult when I was in my early 20′s for the time period of 1992-1994 and that also contributed to me being messed up.
While I haven’t acted out with another man in many years since entering this healing process, I have to admit that I am weak and I need to learn to be stronger. You see, I still struggle and the only things that I have done recently is masturbate and watch porn online. I also struggle with erectile dysfunction, which is secondary, as a result of what had happened to me in life sexually and the physical and emotional abuse as well as the rigorous religious teachings of that cult that I abandoned in 1994. At times, I try to manipulate my genitals and when they reach almost hardness, I masturbate until I climax. I have also done this watching porn and also, when I am talking to myself pretending that there is someone else in the room with me and the talk is always about sex and then, I masturbate to that as well by doing the same genital manipulation. Before that, I used to get hard when I least expected it, but now, I only get hard 2-3 or sometimes more on occasion during the night when I sleep or when I wake up in the early morning hours. I used to get hard every night and have morning ones every time, but now, it only happens once in a while. I also have the problem of my testis freezing up and I have tried stuff like soaking in very warm water and heat, but it just doesn’t work. They still stay frozen.
I need to take my mind off of sex with other men and get my mind into healthy things like spiritual things(I have returned to church and have been attending since September 2011 17 years after leaving the cult), healthy thoughts of men and only view them as brothers and that each and every man is a mirrored image of another as a result of all men’s bodies being the same inside and out and that the only real form of manly is Christian brotherly love and there is no other form of brotherly love. Homosexuality takes this type of love and eroticizes it and that twists it around and all and gets mistaken as real manly love, when in reality, it isn’t.
If anybody out there can give me any ideas on how I can get my mond off of sex with other men and how to stop manipulating my genitals to get erect or near erect for the purpose of masturbation, please share whatever advice and guidance that you can give. It will be very much appreciated. Thanks to all of you in advance for everything and I will try to apply it in my daily life onward.
Thanks again in advance to all of you.
Hello there,
This seems like a very, very difficult place to be but there are many here if not most who do not agree with the Biblical interpretation of homosexuality being “sinful”. I know you were taught to believe this way and it is for many, a deeply-engrained belief and I won’t try to change your mind (nor will you change the minds of anyone here). Homosexuality in and of itself does not lead to destructive behaviors in the same way that lying, addition, stealing, jealousy, etc. For most it leads to healthy, loving relationships with a person of the same sex.
I’m sure that idea sets of massive alarms in your head – you might even believe I’m led astray. I assure you, Jesus is my Savior and I’m devoted to Him. While I am straight, not gay, there are millions of actively gay men and women who are in long-term loving relationships with a partner, who love Jesus and don’t have to sacrifice one to have the other. I would encourage you to spend some time on the Gay Christian Alliance website if you’re interested in reading more.
http://www.gladalliance.org/
If not, please be as kind to yourself as possible. Take care.
DR
Thanks, but I have chosen not to read anything on that website as it conflicts with what I truly believe. I am not looking for any type of sexual relationship with a member of my own gender. What I am looking for are healthy, authentic relationships with other men like friendships, closeness and male bonding where I can trust, confide and connect with other men in a healthy authentic manner and bot in a sexual manner. I want to learn from other men in how I can finally reach the manhood that I was supposed to reach when I became an adult. I don’t want anything sexual with any man. I am looking for male friendships that can lead to closeness, trust, confidence and male bonding. What I want is a guy to say to me; “I really like you and I really like having you around”. and actually mean it. What I don’t want is a guy saying that to me and then asking me for a sexual favor alongside it. I have had my share of so called “friends with benefits” like that and I don’t want any more of those. I want real friends that I can trust, confide and connect with and share things without having to worry about being judged or made to look bad in front of others as a result of what I share. I don’t want nothing sexual with any man nor do I want to be entangled in yet another painful relationship that only leads to more emptyness and loneliness in the end and then, I am back to square one. I have had enough of those and I don’t want anymore of them. They will never really give me what I want, which is affirmation, authenticity and the way that I want to feel, which is like A MAN and not the opposite of that.
I have met other men who have successfully overcame Homosexuality and they are now happily married to members of the opposite sex and also have families. I also know women with the same things that those men have. As far as others, they have changed, but they are single as they prefer to live lives of chastity rather than have any type of immoral sex with a member of their own gender or otherwise. My point is that if those people can successfully overcome Homosexuality, then I can do that as well. Again, I want nothing sexual with men as I only want true friendships with other men. I feel that there are no substitutes for that type of thing and everything else is actually nothing.
The vast majority of those types of relationships within the realm of Homosexuality are really not that happy at all. The vast majority of them last usually 3-6 months and if they do last longer, it is because they agree to have affairs on the side with others while trying to hold onto their relationship. I know this to be true because with many of the men that I know who were successful in overcoming Homosexuality have shared with me that they had done this type of thing while in a relationship with another man and also, there were a few that tried to be faithful but were hurt when they found out about what their “boyfriends” were doing on the side secretly. Yes, that is all too common in that particular sex life within the Homosexual side. Again, quite a few men and women have successfully overcame Homosexuality and are leading very happy lives as a result of them overcoming it. It can happen. It is very real.
But I do want to say Thanks for not trying to get me to change my mind as many others have tried to do, including those that I know who are members of the American Psychiatric Association as I do receive mental health therapy from them as a result of the physical and emotional abuse that I suffered and endured at the hands of my father as well as the therapy that I receive as a result of the sexual abuse that I suffered and endured. Sexual abuse can be the ultimate brainwash as it can lead anyone to think that they prefer members of their own gender, when an older member of their own gender sexually abuses them, rather than the opposite gender. I know that this doesn’t happen to every man who has been sexually abused by other men, but it has happened to many of them and many of them are simply unhappy as a result of that and feel that there is no way out of it, when there really is a way out. They just have to find it for themselves. I did and I am glad that I did, though I am still struggling with the feelings as I willfully choose to refuse to act out on the desires and feelings. Nothing will convince me to act out.
I am not saying that you have a right to your own opinion, because you do and I do respect your opinion, but I have to disagree with it. Why? Because it is not what I truly believe in as a result of what the Holy Bible says about that sort of thing. I am still determined to find real male friends that I can trust, confide and connect with on a healthy and authentic level in order to get the affirmation that I so desperately need to keep going and to survive as a man in this really wicked world that we live in. The whole world wants me to stay in this thing regarding the Homosexual context, but I don’t want to go through all the pain, heartache, depression and other negative emotions that go with the territory of living that type of lifestyle. I have had it and I don’t want any more of it. No Way. No How.
Thanks though for your help, DR. Your help is truly appreciated.
This makes me very sad for you. I’ll be honest about that. But your life is yours to live as you see fit as long as you’re not hurting anyone. Bear in mind that you are within a population that is often driven to suicide and severe emotional disorders. Being gay is not an emotional disorder. If you have a need to view it that way then no one can stop you but I will also say that you need to keep this view as a personal opinion – this is not Biblical, God would not allow a sin to continue with no escape from it. And while I’m sure there are men you know who are able to somehow repress their sexuality and marry women? Those are well-documented to be very few exceptions to the rule and those marriages are often horrible for the women because of the lack of sexual attraction.
I don’t mean to discourage you, you’re quite committed to this path and I wish you the best. But if you’re here looking for support in how to maintain your current stance on homosexuality, I suspect you’ll not find that here. That doesn’t mean *you* aren’t loved and supported but your current state of belief actually hurts kids who are gay terribly, so please bear that in mind as you’re going through this.
This should read:
Bear in mind that you are within a population that is often driven to suicide and severe emotional disorders *as a result of growing up in a culture – largely driven by the Christian church – that being *gay* is intrinsically condemned by God, against nature and bad at its core.* Being gay is not the emotional disorder.
I did forget to say one thing. When I was in that religious cult, I was accepted right away by the members and over time, that acceptance actually led me to be attracted to a member of teh opposite sex. It did happen. Before that, my attractions, which were caused by the physical and emotional abuse by my own father and the sexual abuse by other males for their pleasure, I was attracted to men and found them more appealing than women up to that point. When I was in that cult and the acceptance started right away, the attraction to other women happened. I wondered what had come over me at that time as I was once attracted to men only and now, I have found women more appealing than men. Again, at that time, I couldn’t figure it out. When many of the members of that cult made up lies about me and my last study conductor was a very overly critical man towards me as he continually criticized me left and right without giving me a chance to work on one thing at a time, the attraction to men started all over again. I no longer desired woman anymore as my attractions were once again towards men. After that, I am also now struggling with erectile dysfunction as a result of all that messed me up emotionally from the cult and from all of the abuse that I suffered and endured.
Years later, when I sought a way out of this trap, I started reading books about how others overcame Homosexuality and when I read in one book about acceptance by other men breeding attraction to the opposite sex, it then hit me. The men in that cult accepted me and that bred attraction to the opposite sex as for the first time in my life, I felt desires for women and really wanted the one that I was attracted to, though I was quick to see that she had no interest in me at all, but that was a very significant thing for me. Strange, but significant. I felt that if I can gain more acceptance by other men and have healthy and authentic non-sexual relationships with them, than that could put me on the road to being a Heterosexual (i.e. straight) man and that it is truly possible to be that type of man not just because I want to be that type of man, but because God wants me to be that kind of man as he did create man and woman for a reason and as a result, we are all biologically hard-wired for male-female compatibility. The Holy Bible shows truly that God accepts and supports Heterosexuality and that there are no substitutes for that at all.
I do appreciate the advice that was given to me and for sharing websites with information, but this is my journey out of Homosexuality and I am going to continue my journey. If other men and women can successfully overcome Homosexuality, I can also successfully overcome Homosexuality as well as I will never accept any tag names for that like Gay or faggot or any other slang or obscene term for any man active in that lifestyle.
Thanks again.
Honey, other men and women can’t. That’s what’s worrying everyone, that you have read and listened to a bunch of lies and based your hopes on them. As for why God created men and women, it says he created them to help each other – really! Look it up! But even more than that, we were all created in God’s image to love God.
Best of luck on your journey wherever it takes you.
Allie
I know that you and DR mean well. I am aware that God created us in his image and all and I do believe that.
I have read that account many times and I only see what I had learned and believed all of my life as well as accepted. The main reason why God created a human woman for the man was because all of the other animals in the Garden of Eden where they were living also had partners who were female or women as far as animals went. That is why God created the human female as a complement to him and the man, named Adam, called her woman as he came out of the rib of a man by also saying “bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh”. Each and every one of us, be we male or female, are biologically hard-wired for the compatibility for male-female. It also said that a man must leave his father and mother to be united with his wife to be one flesh.
When I started reading the books in the early 2000′s, what I read there regarding the non-acceptance and non-love and non-support of the father being the root of why a man is Homosexual really applied to me here as I never really got the love and affirmation of my own father as he also physically and emotionally abused me as he never told me that he loved me nor did he ever kiss me nor hugged me when I was growing up. He also showed that in his own way, he just didn’t want anything at all with me and that really was the root of my struggles alongside the sexual abuse that I suffered and endured at the hands of other males, including those instances that happened when I was a young kid at the ages of 7, 10 and 16. All of what I read in them really applied to what I was struggling with and it was an eye opener. I now saw that there was a way out of this if I am willing to take it and put up with all the difficulties associated with the healing process out of Homosexuality. If other men and women who have done that can do it, I can do it as well.
I know that one day I will reach my own manhood. I don’t know when that day will come, but when it comes, I know that I will be happy when I reach it I really didn’t reach full manhood when I became an adult man, but one day, I know that I will. I just can’t let any setbacks deter me away from that. I am going to keep going and march forward in my journey to manhood. I don’t know when I will reach it, but when I do, I will feel much better about myself and I will finally feel the way that a man is supposed to feel.
Thanks again for your well meaningfulness.
I find it really something that someone who is gay, conservatively Christian and committed to saying that way would come John Shore blog looking for support on continuing his belief that being gay is condemned by God. Either FTC wandered into a corner of the internet that wasn’t aware of or this isn’t exactly what this seems. Color me cynical but this is the fundamentalist element we’re dealing with here, not exactly known for truth in advertising.
Interesting. I’m curious, given that this is site as well as John being pretty well known for holding the opposite view points, what was it that you wanted here? Were you aware of John’s beliefs that being gay is not sinful and men can be both masculine as well as gay as well as Christian, all at the same time?
I’m curious as to why you’re looking for support from that particular belief corner.
I love what you said, DR: God would not allow a sin to continue with no escape from it. For so many reasons, and because I know it’s true.
Funny you should mention men who have overcome their homosexuality. Do you know that many prominent people who made those claims have later reversed them and admitted they were lying the whole time? I live in Memphis, home of Love in Action, a reparative therapy program. The man who ran it, John Smid, now admits that nothing can change a person’s sexual orientation. He is trying to make amends to those gay people he hurt through his former lies. He has chosen to remain married to a woman and faithful to her. I haven’t really read through his stuff, but maybe he will have some thoughts that would be helpful to you where you are right now.
http://www.gracerivers.com/tag/john-smid/
As a woman I can completely sympathize with wanting a male friend who isn’t into you for sex. Women have problems with that too.
The problem with Christian men and women who do overcome homosexuality or are set free from it they get into all sorts of trouble in trying to do the same for others. They flaunt their freedoms and they tend to forget the God who set them free. When we step away from grace and walk in our own strength, we will fall flat on our faces in all sorts of mischief. We find ourselves visiting the gay bars, perusing the porn sites and going back to the place where had the first “good time”. Only because we left God in the dust and working in our own strength. Some of those men certainly were set free, but we can’t live with the grace of God. I do understand that I am writing to someone who agrees with homosexuality, I am merely responding to what was said, not attacking you personally. Because if one is convinced of something to be right, how in God’s name am I going to change it, I can’t and I won’t.
Stop, Karl, just stop. Go and find yourself a cozy fundy blog where you’ll fit in splendidly with all your self-righteous bigotry. I’m sure those things exist out there somewhere. Your bullshit is unwelcome, and it’s starting to really piss me off.
Jill your problem is not with me, it’s with God. Lets be truthful, His laws are bullshit and Jesus is the easy going guy that accepts everyone as they are and demands no change from us. Basically, we want God’s name, but “whatever you do God don’t interfere in our lives.” The reprobate mind is the mind that has successfully pushed back the conviction power of God and no longer is aware that what they are doing is wrong. The righteous God is now replaced with their own idea of who God is.
I will now leave this site Jill only because you have requested that I do.
When you get close to God, really close, I guarantee that the sexual orientation with the same sex gender becomes repulsive. I love you enough to tell you the truth, even though you can’t stand me. Jesus told the truth in His day and they still wanted to get rid of Him. They couldn’t stand to hear it.
Thanks John for allowing me to share in your blog.
http://www.tscnyc.org/
Karl, I think you are trapped in a lot of frustration, anxiety and grief. As well as a lot of confusion, your comments certainly don’t indicate someone who is at true peace with himself. There was a reason you were drawn to this site and I sense you thought you were going to be the teacher and are perhaps, leaving with a wound and a restlessness that will continue to poke at you. May the Holy Spirit truly, truly be with you. The heart of the stubborn never finds rest. I hope you find deeper pools of rest than you’ve ever encountered.
I thank you for the comments DR I do sense they are genuine and receive them readily, but let me assure you, I am a very poor teacher, I try to avoid it as much as possible. However, I am frustrated because I want to go one way and God is pulling me into another. He will win out. I, like a little child, will try to get my own way but eventually through exhaustion I will bend to His will. Thank you again for your generous contribution in speaking those words into my life.
Just remember that you don’t have to be in control, Karl and God is not someone to be afraid of – fear of the Lord is knowing His divine presence but it is not being afraid of ourselves. Truly. God loving you is not dependent upon you fighting your desires. It’s Him loving you exactly the way you are. You’ll never be able to please Him. He doesn’t need you to, He just needs you to rest in Him as much as you can stand. Much love to you, you’ll be in my prayers. We’re all struggling so much and in the end, so utterly dependent upon His mercy.
“Jill your problem is not with me, it’s with God. Lets be truthful, His laws are bullshit and Jesus is the easy going guy that accepts everyone as they are and demands no change from us.”
Jill, this is abusive filth uttered from what appears to be a deeply confused, trigger-touchy very angry and miserable man who seems to be trying to find his way to some peace. I remember how damaging I was when I’d say this kind of thing and just cringe from the memory.
These conversations are HARD and you have a lot of strength that continues to show up and inspire me as you battle this kind of thing. You have my deep and abiding respect. xoxoxoxo
Hi DR. I chose to step away from what I interpreted the conversation to be of fundamentalist plants, that of Karl and FTC. I am more than ok with being wrong, if I am! If either of them are truly as they claimed, a hurt and struggling man, I begrudge them nothing other than I am fully weary of listening to the same busted record that people whom I treasure are hell-bound sinners. I’m cashed out on it.
I was thinking about a transwoman I sat with in church on Easter Sunday, and I’m just getting to know her, as well as the church itself. She didn’t have to say much about her story, and I could hear how much abandonment and sadness she’s faced in her lifetime. I don’t pity her– I am inspired by her strength and determination to remain a Christian when it is mainly Christians that oppose her, deride her, and exclude her. She has such poise and grace, and it is through people like her– and other dear friends out here– that I have been able to see what Christ is making new.
DR, you personally have inspired me to hang in there and go the distance on behalf of those whom I love and care about. I think of your words quite often when I remind myself that Christ’s love is worth fighting for when there are those whom Christians have beaten down nearly to dust. We’re in this together, my friend.
Karl, perhaps you could take some of your own advice here. I’m actually fine with this path you’ve chosen for yourself, if it somehow serves you to suppress your desires because it helps you to achieve some kind of deeper peace with yourself and others? Fine. That’s great, I don’t judge it, that’s between you and God, if you are labeling being gay a sin, no one can stop you. But what you seem to be doing here is doing that collectively, you’re taking your experience and extending it toward everyone else. You’ve heard a dozen times here that there are people who are both gay and Christian and have absolutely no issue with reconciling both. Why are you at such odds with them? Why are you trying to control their experience? It doesn’t make your choices any less wrong. Why are you putting such energy into showing everyone else that they are wrong when ultimately, it really won’t impact the peace you’ve found with God yourself? And if it is impacting that, why?
Hi DR, Thanks for the questions. ” Why are you at such odds with them? Why are you trying to control their experience?”
hmm…I just don’t think anyone can be a true born again believer and say that it’s okay that men can have sex with other men. God said through Isaiah the prophet that He would write His law in our hearts and we would from that source perform His good will. It’s simply not possible that a person who is born again who has His law in their hearts to say that it’s “okay”. His law speaks against two men having sex.
There are many Christians who are homosexually oriented (including myself) that disagree with it but find themselves falling into over and over again. The odds that I guess that I oppose is the idea that one can be Christian and than say that a particular “sin” is okay when God has declared it wrong. I don’t hate or despise homosexuals. I hate it when someone says it’s okay when it’s not. Be a sinner and remain a sinner, but don’t say your a Christian and then say that it’s okay to be gay. Unfortunately, if anyone quotes from the bible your going to get shot down. That’s a normal reaction.
I did not know this was a gay site, I was doing a search online and this particular thread came up and I was responding to it. I will be more than happy to bow out, I know Jill would appreciate it. God love ya Jill.
Well, you didn’t really answer my questions but that’s fine.
FYI, this isn’t a ‘gay site’. This is a site with a lot of gay people and a lot of straight people. John is a happily married straight man. And I’m a straight Christian who is quite certain that one can be both actively gay and Christian.
The issue as I see it is that you feel the need to control who God says is in the Book of Life and who does not – that is more of a reflection of where you are with your own walk with Jesus than it is anyone else’s. The second issue is that you need *your interpretation* of Scripture to be “the Bible”. It’s not, Karl. It’s just your interpretation, you and I both can only rely upon interpretations of the Word. Neither of us have the last word on what Scripture truly means, we see through that cloudy, broken glass as a result of our sin. So as you go, consider that you’re leaving us here, not with an impression of a man who is at tremendous peace with Jesus, but as a man who expressed a lot of arrogance and insecurity when he encountered people who held an opposing view of scripture and expressed the concerns we have with yours. A man who needs to know before he gets to heaven, who is a sheep and who is a goat when God says that it is the Holy Spirit alone who knows the hearts of men. Be careful, Karl. Take care of yourself.
I apologize. What question(s) were they specifically?
I was trying to understand why you feel such a need to define who is really a Christian and who is not. It’s my understanding that only Jesus knows the hearts of man. For example, I have grave disagreements with the people who post here but I’d never challenge the authenticity of someone’s declaration of faith before Jesus, regardless of what I think about what they reveal about themselves.
[sanctimonious yet transparently rancorous fundy comment deleted]
Oh, FTC. I know you need to believe that you are under spiritual persecution here, that we are “blinded” by the devil and as a result, are treating you aggressively, challenging how you think and feel. I think we all know that is how you can keep your very structured, ordered sense of good and bad, holy and unholy, right and wrong all in order. And I sense that’s what you need in order to manage the fear in your life.
I write all of this knowing you may not be willing to or able to really *hear* it because a lot of this is too threatening for you. And frankly, I’m fine if you think I’m from the devil, etc. I know who I am before Jesus. Jesus is the Lord of my life. I’m ok without your endorsement.
But what I will do is continue to speak to you matter of factly and challenge what you’re offering here with other perspectives that are motived out of intense concern for what your interpretation of Scripture is doing to the GLBT community, the spiritual and emotional harm it causes. You’re still here and you’re still participating so the dialogue is serving you in some way. It will be interesting in time to see what that is.
[insipid and decidedly passive-aggressive fundy drivel deleted.]
DR, it is just that what you are trying to do here is that you are claiming to be a Christian >>>
You’re so mired in your own rhetoric that you can’t see what you’re doing. Out of the right side of your mouth, you say that I am simply “claiming” that I am a Christian, casting doubts upon the authenticity of my salvation. But then out of the left side of your mouth, you use a thousand words to explain why you’re not doing that, hiding behind the Bible as you do so.
People who use a ton of words are fearful of speaking plainly. I think we’re all clear on you feeling quite confident in claiming who is a real christian and who isn’t as you deal with us on the internet. The way you use the Bible to passively-aggressively call people fake Christians is nauseating, treating our sacred Scriptures in such a manner, it’s shocking. But you and I both know what you’re doing. You aren’t hiding as well as you think you are.
And I appreciate you saying you’ll pray for me, but please don’t. I’ve never said that to anyone, but your showy words of piety after you attack the authenticity of peoples’ faith here is nauseating and frankly, super creepy. As a result, I’d prefer that you keep me out of your prayers. Appreciate the intent but you are not someone, so far, that I’d desire prayer from. Thanks anyway!
And with all due respect, you’re not in some kind of holy competition here. We’re not your enemy, you are *making* us your enemy. The only things won or lost are souls. Be very careful in creating enemies, FTC, we are told in Scripture that are true enemies are forces we can’t see. Consider applying a bit more maturity to your exchanges here, a bit more integrity – just because we are challenging you doesn’t mean we are the devil or spiritually attacking you, suggesting that we are is manipulative, did you know that? It’s actually a passive-aggressive way of not actually dealing with what people like us are saying to you. If you make us “demons”, then you get to distance yourself from us and not really engage us in any meaningful way. Be honest with yourself if that’s what you’ve done here. And if it is? That’s fine, I suspect we’ll all survive knowing you believe us to be motivated by demonic forces. But also know that you viewing us in that way is your choice, and it’s your choice more than likely because encountering people who are challenging you feels very threatening and scary and you may not be handling it well.
[fundy crap deleted]
Dear, faith only comes from God alone. I’ve said a number of times that I’m a Christian and believe that one can be Christian and gay at the same time. According to the particular line you’ve drawn in the sand using the scripture to do so- that the two are not reconcilable if one has authentic faith. The only conclusion left to draw is you are judging that my faith is false. You’re quite circular in your thinking, as I’ve stated before, I don’t need your endorsement of my salvation. I’m just wanting your accusations of my faith being false and your certainly of it being false to be stated plainly. You’re going around in circles. Just say it so we’ll all know your real point of view.
I receive what you have said brother. Harsh as it is, but sometimes that is exactly what I need to hear. Let me say this, I am VERY happy to see another brother like yourself who is struggling with the same thing as I have been very alone in my struggle. And the best part is that you don’t agree with it.
I was doing a search which I do from time to time looking for a guy that I can be close to without sex and I saw this site as one of the results. I am happy that I came here and though I told Jill that I was leaving, I just won’t respond to Jill and I hope she just puts me on ignore or skips past my posts, I truly do not want to upset her anymore than she is.
Thanks for your post.
My obscure email address is niblets37 @ hotmail dot com
Karl, come on – do you actually view the people here as being motivated/deluded by Satan? Seriously?
(And if you’re avoiding Jill, perhaps ask yourself why she’s so angry with you. Seek to understand her, Karl, instead of just knee-jerk reacting. Consider that your theology, the way you’ve chosen to interpret these verses about being gay being sinful has devastated people like Jill and she’s here trying to recover from that, trying to recover from hearing that she is an “abomination”. Consider thinking about someone besides yourself who is in need of healing from this community, who is receiving it, and has encountered someone who seeks to shame her again out of his own need to feel ok about his homosexuality. That’s what is happening and while I’m sure you don’t intend to, you and FTC coming into this community and preaching to everyone about how sinful and “of the devil” we are is exactly what gay kids have heard their entire lives. It makes them terrified of Jesus and some people have found a refuge here. You’ll find several of us incredibly protective of them and we will ask John to ban you if you keep that rhetoric up. If this is your own journey? Fine, no one will stop you. But this is a safe place for men and women who are gay to reconcile their suffering from the evil, abusive interpretations conservative christianity has smacked them over the head with and we love them. They are our family and we will not allow you to abuse them, even if you think you are “telling the truth in the name of Jesus” which I realize is what you think you’re doing. But despite your intent, your impact is severely harmful. We won’t stand for it anymore, despite you claiming that you have the freedom to your opinions. Your opinions that being gay is being sinful are harmful. They hurt kids. They’ve hurt people like Jill. We’ll not be silent anymore. You’re done having the platform unchallenged. A lot of us are now standing up to you and whatever self-loathing or homophobia has driven you to this place and we’re taking our church back so at minimum, you can’t hurt people anymore. If you want to hurt yourself? None of us can stop you, that makes me very sad but it’s your choice. But it stops there, at least as it applies to this dialogue in this community.
Karl
Thanks. I will dropping you a line any day now. I will put in the subject line that “Karl, This is FTC from John Shore.com
Please be on the lookout for it and also, check your junk mail for it to see if my e-mail to you winds up in there.
DR, I would not say your a false brother/sister, you could have very well been ‘down the road’ had a true beginning, but somewhere along the way it’s possible that you have been deluded. Now, in your mind what you consider delusion was an illumination. I’ve been deluded, and I have no doubt delusions about some of my thinkings. This is a normal function of the human mind, especially in us men. I have a brother who had struggled with homosexuality for many years. He buried it got married and had a child. When the child was raised and had left the nest, he ended up going back into the lifestyle full throttle. It no doubt plagued his whole life while married to his wife and now finding an opportunity, he convinced himself that this is okay before God. To live out his life he has to avoid all contact with people that are going to condemn his choice…namely people like me. Which when I met him I had compassion on him and never uttered a word of condemnation. That is the last thing the brother needs.
Karl, quit playing around, have some respect for those of us here please. This isn’t our first rodeo with those of you who believe us to be in delusion and as a result, express that our faith is not sincere. I copy and pasted your quote that made your feelings quite clear. Now is not the time to back peddle, as the Word says “Let your yes be yes and your no be no.”
PS – think of the hundreds of people who have come here wanting some kind of relief from hearing they are an “abomination” before God, that there is no hope for them. They’ve all read what you’ve written here. So think twice about who you’ve condemned as you’ve actually tried to claim that people can’t have an experience with Jesus while being gay. It is so deeply spiritually abusive, I don’t have any words for it. God have mercy on you for the damage you have no idea that you do as you express that kind of thing. I mean that.
OK, I’ve had enough for tonight, this is about all I can take.
One thing to pursue, Karl, if you want to is the men and women who are gay and who are in exclusive relationships. I know dozens of same-sex couples who are in devoted, monogamous relationships raising some of the sweetest kids I’ve had the pleasure of meeting. It’s just life – raising kids, paying their taxes, going to church, doing normal stuff – I wonder how life would be if you expanded your circle of gay interactions to these people instead of the bar scene? Straight people have the bar scene too and it’s certainly pretty depressing. Just a thought.
Actually I couldn’t expand my circle into that realm, I’d be thrown out. We had a taste of it here. I wouldn’t be able to refrain myself. Like what Jeremiah said, “Your word is like fire shut up in my bones”. He too, didn’t want to speak the word of the Lord because he was sick and tired of getting the back lash. But he couldn’t resist the power of God welling up in his soul to speak out. Alas, that is my Achilles heel. I have no doubt that there are a lot of “good” gay families out there that are trying to live the best they know how and would like to be left alone in doing it. But just because these people do good things and live good lives does not mean it’s sanctioned by God. And this goes for anyone, not just homosexuals, heck, this goes for me too. We do not measure our righteousness by our good works or good living or our good deeds, it’s only obtained when we put our complete trust in Christ. (I am sure you are aware of this). I am very much aware that this world is changing and my thinking is archaic, Paul tells us not be conformed to this world way of thinking but to be transformed by the renewing the mind into the mind of Christ. Jill said in another post that she sees God as a God of love not as God that judges. And yet God does both. What He does not do is condemn willingly.
I’m not sure I understand why exposing yourself to high-functioning gay men and women who are raising great kids and are in exclusively monogamous relationships would be harmful. It sounds like all you’re doing, when you’re feeling overwhelmed is going online to gay porn or bars. That’s reducing being gay down to just lust and sex and there are thousands of gay men and women who’ve created families together, who go to church and are raising their kids as Christians who would be able to show you that being gay is a lot more than just lust. It’s love, it’s desiring a life partner and being in a relationship.
God’s revelation to us through Jesus is complete but that doesn’t mean we always understand it. We didn’t understand how to interpret the scriptures that talk about “dark skin’ and as a result, justified slavery and segregation. As a culture, we’re still trying to deal with the devastations of how we mislabeled that. Many of us believe we’ve done the same thing to the GLBT community so we’re trying to repair that now.
You make some good and valid points and I can see how that all makes sense to you. I do understand what your saying. However, do we void God’s law because gay families are living ‘good’ lives and raising ‘good’ kids etc..? I am not in any way shape or form condemning these families, what I have to condemn is when people say that God is an agreement with their same sex orientation. It all boils down to that. I would never stand in front of homosexual and tell him he is going to hell or any such things, that is not for me to say, that’s between him and God. It’s this thinking that God has changed His mind in the New Testament and apologized to mankind that what He did to Sodom was a mistake and that His judgments were over the top. What if God only started off with Adam and Steve? No woman, just two men. I can assure you the planet would have two skeletons laying somewhere and that would have been the end of that.
Karl, you actually *do* say that to people like Jill when you draw a correlation between being gay and being Christian. *You* are the one suggesting the scriptures are saying that one can’t be both gay and Christian. You are responsible for the impact of those words. Let’s be clear here, they are not *God’s Word*, they are how *you* are *interpreting* God’s Word.
And make no mistake about it, you and FTC are incredibly transparent. By calling one another “brother” and “fellow believer”, you’re trying to subtly suggest that your faith is the faith before Christ that is really true and that the rest of us are operating under a false, deluded faith. Don’t fool yourself, gentlemen, you’re not the first people to come onto this forum and you won’t be the last. And you’re not as well-hidden as you think you are. The difference here is that people will call you on what it is you are *actually* saying and hold you accountable to those words. I suspect you’ve not encountered much of that in your lives and I doubt you’ll be able to handle it for long. But I guarantee you, you’ll never forget it.
“I’m not sure I understand why exposing yourself to high-functioning gay men and women who are raising great kids and are in exclusively monogamous relationships would be harmful.”
DR, who said anything about being harmful? I said that I wouldn’t be able to keep my mouth shut when the topic about God accepts their lifestyle. I have talked and continue to talk with gay men and women. I have a niece that is lesbian and one of my friends daughter is lesbian and I love her very much. My nephew is gay and I never sit there and condemn either one of them. They are people like any other people. But don’t stand there and tell me that God agrees with that. That is the issue here. Not good families, not good kids, not good living people, not charitable people.
Oh got it, thanks for the clarification. And yes, God is absolutely with that! He is 100% ok with people being gay and being in love and loving Him. Being gay has 0% to do with someone’s salvation, one can be a new creation in Christ and continue to be gay. Praise God!
(But by the way, you actually do condemn them if the subject of God comes up and you say that being gay is not reconcilable with being in a relationship with Christ. Even *thinking* that condemns them, Karl.)
I am not avoiding Jill, she doesn’t want to communicate and I respect her for that. As for not considering her feelings about going through the ass end of life being called an abomination and told she is going to hell etc.. I am very aware of it because I am in the same boat. She is getting angry because I am upsetting what she has come to know as truth. If she was standing on a solid foundation, she would not respond with anger. It’s not important to prove to ourselves that we are “okay” and what we are doing is “okay”, what is most important is that God does not see her as an abomination but receives her as she is where she is. Upon receiving us, He goes to work in changing us into the image of Jesus Christ. Now, is Jesus Christ a homosexual? Is He a Heterosexual? The answer is obvious, He is neither. When we are being changed into His likeness, He doesn’t confirm our current sexuality He confirms our standing in Him in Spirit by faith. However, because some of us do not recognize that we are dead to sin and alive unto Him, many of us are bound by besetting sins that hold us back from obtaining the fullness of Christ. The problem with the gay community is that they have been convinced that they themselves and their sin is one in the same therefore because they have these feelings for the wrong sex God must have made them that way. That is the lie that has been fed to hurting homosexuals, and if I never knew Jesus Christ I too would have believe it. The argument is ingenious. Why would God make this way? God didn’t! When Adam and Eve fell in the garden, they fell big time. They took on the nature of the devil, his nature is disobedience and rebellion. There are homosexuals that say that they were born this way. That is true. But David says it this way, “I was born in sin and in my mother’s womb I was shapen in iniquity”. Yes, we were born homosexuals because we were born in sin. All the elements to be a homosexual were there, all that is required is experimentation. Most homosexuals today fit in the category of being raped as children. “Train up a child in the way he should go and when he is older, he will not depart from it”. The sin nature is present throughout our lives. Jill shouldn’t be fighting “for the cause” of the gay community, but should be seeking the Father to expose any wicked way in her so nothing stands in the way between her and her God. If that is sincerely prayed and sought daily, there is no way that she can defend her stand that being a lesbian is okay before God for God will expose it. That is how I know that the gay Christian do not seek God in this manner, because if they did, the word gay Christian would cease to exist. God will expose anything that we are holding onto dear, that includes a husband, wife, children, lover, mistress, etc.. Again, I am just talking. If this is Fundy stuff, know this that I can’t help it, I do live near the Fundy Coast of Canada.
She is getting angry because I am upsetting what she has come to know as truth. If she was standing on a solid foundation, she would not respond with anger. >>>
Really, Karl? Because you’ve been awfully hostile and defensive in several comments, I’m happy to copy and paste them. Is that because you’re not standing on a solid foundation?
Oh wait, I see how you get around it. You referred to it as feeling a twinge of “righteousness”. I see. So you’re simply sanitizing your anger through a “holy filter” so you can say to yourself that it’s not actual anger. Here are some of your words here:
“…the god that you supposedly serve in your sin is my devil. Your god is not the god of the bible, your god is a tolerant god that deletes portions of the word of God to suit your way of thinking”.
Here you are actually calling someone else’s faith in Christ evil. You referred to their faith your “devil”. It’s so arrogant and incredulous that some of you do that and then claim you’re not “angry”, the depth to which you have compartmentalized the different parts of yourselves is intense and pretty frightening.
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Well there we go, the JP from allowing gays to be married to talking about the rape of children being legal. That, Karl, is so vile that I refuse to participate in that dialogue. It’s an example of a very damaged mind and spirit. Take care.
Egad, my grammar is bad. I wished that there was an edit button, I said, “Some of those men certainly were set free, but we can’t live with the grace of God.”
It should read, “We can’t live WITHOUT the grace of God”. ugh!
I can relate to you 110%!! I too struggle with these feelings and I KNOW in my heart that they are wrong! I have not even overcome acting out yet and I hate myself for it! I KNOW it is wrong and yet I still do it but have not figured out why. I feel as though I am a slave to my flesh as times. I want no part of that lifestyle either as I know it is morally wicked and it displeases God because the Bible said so! If you want an on line friend to chat with, I could really use one as well. NO ONE knows of my struggles that I can speak to about this. Perhaps it is my pride but I would be utterly humiliated if anyone I know found out about it. Would be great to have a venue for release on line.
Please respond if you’d like and lets chat. And for the record, I don’t even know you but my heart still genuinely goes out to you — perhaps because I can relate. Remember that we are sons of God and nothing can take that away although the Devil would sure like us to believe that.
Jesus forgives — Satan reminds
Chris
Chris,
I am in the same boat as you man. I have struggled with this stronghold for a very long time. It has all come to the surface and now my marriage is in jeopardy.
I am seeking God like never before and I have made a commitment to Him that I will never stray away again. I would like the opportunity to corespond with someone who can relate to my struggles and find an accountability partner.
I am 38 married with three children and I live in Texas. If you would like to get in touch with me, please let me know.
God bless
Jeremy
I would really like to get in touch with you. I think that it would be wonderful for us to communicate and share some things between us. All I need is for you to say okay and we can start that minute. Thanks.
Jeremy,
I am right there with you. I am 44 and married and I have been struggling for years with this addiction and no matter how hard I try I can’t shake this. The desire is too strong and it makes me feel helpless, week and guilty. I too live in Texas and I have been desperate to talk with people about this that understand and can give me support. Let me know if you or anyone else out there is interested in communicating.
Greg
What an awfully hard thing. I don’t have any answers except I wish for all of you, the terror of “being gay” was gone from our Church. It has to feel pretty helpless and complicated, I think a lot of us know what it means to live in the dark, to live with secrets and feel like we’re living a double life. It’s scary, coming into the light and there are no easy answers. Much love to you.
I feel that I am in the same situation as you and a couple of others Jeremy, and it seems as though its becoming harder for me to “control” each day. I’m 39, married with 3 kids in Texas also. I woke up today and said that I was going to get on the Internet to see if I can find help and or support. I’m interested in knowing how your journey is going and what you have done or are doing to stay on track.
God bless
Hi there. Thanks for sharing so much of your private life. I hope we can share some insights that may prove helpful to you.
For many years I served as a CASA (court appointed special advocate) for abused children, including sexually abused children. I can tell you that many boys are sexually abused by older boys or men and do not become homosexual. Likewise, if every man who was rejected and imperfectly loved by his father became gay, there would be many more gay men than there are in reality. Only those children who are gay to begin with grow up to be gay. Studies of identical versus fraternal twins indicate that although there is no one “gay gene,” there is a genetic component to sexuality. Other studies indicate that sexuality may be determined not genetically but in the womb – as many other human traits are, such as left or right handedness, finger length, the direction of hair swirls, and birth marks. You wouldn’t say that just because the length of your fingers isn’t determined by a gene, you get to pick how long your fingers are, and you’re a bad person because you decided to have short fingers. That would be silly. But you are saying the same thing about your sexuality.
Please read some of the other posts on this site about Sodom and Gomorrah. It’s also good to read your Bible instead of trusting what “everybody knows” the Bible says. The Bible says that the sin of Sodom was pride, and lack of hospitality, not caring for the poor. The story about the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah tells about a city where people raped strangers to punish them – a similar story is told in Judges, except that in that case the stranger was able to offer the rapists a female stranger to rape, whom they accepted. It is clear from the parallel that the virgin daughters of Lot were unacceptable, not because the attackers were gay, but because the daughters did not belong to the strangers the townspeople were attempting to punish. If the angels had happened to be appearing as women, they would have been just as acceptable to the attacking mob.
Regarding your erectile issues, are you on any medication? Your problems sound a lot like a medical issue, especially if you are not having erections as often when you sleep. Since erectile dysfunction can be a first sign of many problems, including heart problems, as well as a side effect of drugs such as Prozac, you definitely need to see a physician about this! Please take good care of yourself.
Dear FTC,
You have been through a lot. Too much. More than any one person should have to bear. What happened to you as a child is not your fault. It was wrong. The people who hurt you were wrong. It is compounded by the abuse from your father and that of the cult that you left. This is quite a lot to carry. I’m glad to see in another note here that you are receiving counseling from someone who can help you navigate these very difficult things and their associated emotions. A gifted and trustworthy therapist is indeed a valuable asset.
Having to carry and navigate all of these events and emotions is not only heavy work, it’s very disorienting. It often makes it difficult to know what is true and real and who really loves us and what real love and trust and friendship is when so many times in the past we have been hurt and disappointed.
What I have found to be absolutely true for me – and as a healthcare provider, I have heard and seen how it is so vitally true for others as well – is that for real healing to begin, we have to learn to let go of the lies about ourselves that for too long we thought were true. In order to better be able to connect in a meaningful way with others we have to learn to like and be ok with and accept ourselves. If our own self-concept is at odds with who we think we are – if we cannot be authentic and real with ourselves, it is very difficult to have that kind of relationship with others. We have to stare the real truth in the face and accept it as true. It’s in these breakthrough moments in the therapeutic process where we so often find the truth that sets us free.
From a religious point of view for healing to take place and for us to be ok with ourselves, it is so fundamentally important to know that we are enough with God, that we are not a disappointment, that we are worthy of being loved. We have to know that we are fearfully and wonderfully made and that the God that made you to be who you are is not waiting for you to be perfect for God to love you. God does not expect you to be the perfect servant. There is nothing you can do to make God love you more….. because God loves you already. God loves you now. You are enough. Just as you are – God loves you. Please know this.
As Allie has pointed out the sexual dysfunction to which you refer may be medical in nature. It could also be a side effect of medication or it could be part of the greater whole of issues you are wrestling with. It would be wise to let both your doctor and your counsellor know about these symptoms and when they occur.
And as all have said here, keep getting the help you need, be kind and gentle with yourself, and know that God deeply loves you.
Christy
Thanks so much for the words of encouragement. They are really appreciated. It is wonderful that I have reached one person and reaching one person is better than not reaching anyone. Thanks again for the kind words of encouragement.
Regarding accepting myself as who I am, I am learning to do that. You see, I have accepted that I am a man. Yes, I am an actual man. I also have to accept that my body is just like any other man’s body. I have the same parts and organs on my body, both sexual and non-sexual, that every man has. I am a man externally and a man internally. I was born a male and I was made a male for a reason. I have always felt that if God wanted me to be a woman, I would have been born a female rather than a male. So, I am a man and a male through and through as I am this gender that I am for a reason. I have accepted myself as far as accepting my own gender identity is concerned. Does that make any sense to you, Christy?.
I have also learned on my own from the books and articles that I have read about the healing process from Homosexuality that every man wants to be a masculine man in the same sense that every woman wants to be a feminine woman. I learned that, in itself, masculinity is not a physical attribute despite what our culture says to the contrary. I learned that masculinity is an intrinsic(i.e. inner)quality. Each and every man identifies himself as a man by accepting his gender identity and masculinity is something that as men feel by becoming familiar with our own male identity and accepting it and it is also fulfilled in normal social situations without even knowing it. It is a matter of being, feeling and not knowing. In woman, femininity also works the very same way that masculinity does. The differences is that masculinity is of men and boys and femininity is of women and girls. But they are both synomymous in that there are both internal and not physical attributes. Each and every man can feel masculine from within their hearts and each and every woman can feel feminine from within their heart as well. You may have heard some men use the phrase “I feel like a man” and some women use the phrase “I feel like a woman”. Does any of this make sense?
I have learned that on my own. By all the books that I have read and by being a member of online groups that I am a member of who do help men who want to overcome Homosexuality and with that acceptance that I got from the members of the cult, I have found that it is possible for any Homosexual man to change from being Homosexual to Heterosexual. I experienced that years ago and when I started reading the books, that is when it hit me. My attraction to women at the time was very real and though I found it strange, I still found it significant from what I had learned later on when I started reading all of those books that I had read. I have read books written by Christians who were successful in overcoming Homosexuality and also some books from secular authors. I am still seeking even more spiritual support in my journey and the more that I get, the better I know that I will feel. I have signed up with a site called Setting Captives Free and I am hoping to get a lot of spiritual support from that site when I receive some stuff from them in my e-mail. I am hoping that it will be a big help for me and maybe, gain some more healing from what I want to heal from.
Aside from the abuse of my father and the abuse of the cult that I left, I also suffered and endured sexual abuse at the hands of other males. Yes, I was. A man in my neighborhood masturbated in front of me when I was 7. At 10 years of age, a 16 year old kid talked me into performing oral sex on him. The worst was when I was 16 as another man in my neighborhood raped me. I was also used by other males for their pleasure in many other instances in my life as they got pleasure from me but I never got it repaid to me. All of that Christy really messed me up emotionally. I am still trying to heal from all of the wounds that I have accumulated from all of that abuse as it hasn’t been easy. But Christy, I am still hanging in there and still remaining hopeful. I am also thankful that I am still alive and living.
I know that God loves and accepts me as I am. But Christy, I have learned through the Holy Bible that God does not condone sinful behaviors and while he doesn’t condone them, he is still there to forgive us when we do fall short as we are all imperfect as a result of the first great sin that Adam and Eve committed in the eyes of God in the Garden of Eden when they disobeyed and ate the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. When that happened, that is when we, as humans, were led into imperfection, sin and the worst part of it all, death. Adam and Eve really screwed things up and we are still living with that imperfection and living with sin all around us and it is also why we human beings die. God hates the sin, but he doesn’t hate the sinner. God loved us so much that he sent his son Jesus Christ to bring us back into a good standing with God his father and to also save people from sin. That is why he died on the cross for us so we would never have to be enslaved to sin and that we can be set free from sin and be forgiven in his name because God sent him not just to save but also to die for the benefit of mankind in the many centuries later. That is the message of Christianity and it is a wonderful message that Christians all over the world spread. You see, though I have sinned in the past, I am now forgiven for them and when I do fall short, which I do on occasion, all I need to do is ask God in the name of his son Jesus Christ to forgive me and after that, the slate is wiped clean and it doesn’t matter to God anymore. Christy, I am a church going man and I do truly have faith in the church and in God himself through his son Jesus Christ. I just started going back to church 17 years after leaving that dreaded cult that really wasn’t all that they were cracked up to be. Live and learn, I suppose.
Regarding the sexual dysfunction that I am suffering from, I think that it is mostly psychological in nature as far as myself personally is concerned. I also have read a book called Sex: A User’s Manual, which I aquired from a book store and there is a section on erectile dysfunction, which they used the word impotence as it is also commonly called, and I came to see that my case of dysfunction was secondary, which means that I was previously potent, but now that I am not. When I got to the section of unnecessary parental prohibitions, abuse and rigorous religious teaching, that fit me because I went through all of that myself and it made sense. I went through many forms of abuse and all the rigorous religious teachings of the cult regarding sexual activity and how they viewed it. This really applied to me. Though I do take psychiatric medication, I do have erections at times when I am sleeping and when I wake up in the morning at times. The difference is that they don’t happen like they used to happen when I was younger, but still, they do happen when I least expect them to happen. At one time years ago, I actually had morning erections three times in one week. They weren’t consecutive, but they did happen and when I mean week, I mean the 5 day week, not including weekends, though they do happen on weekends on occasion as well.
I also have come to the point in my life where I have accepted that the abuse was never my fault. I also feel that I didn’t deserve it as nobody deserves to be abused in any way, shape or form as there is also no excuse for any form of abuse. Abuse is simply inappropriate and the people who have been abused never deserve any abuse that they get from anyone family or otherwise.
The only thing that I strive to be is to be the man that not only I want to be, but the man that God wants me to be. He wants me to be a Heterosexual man and also, a man who can do things in his name through his son Jesus Christ and also to help others who have also suffered and endured abuse of all sorts. Each and every one of us has the capacity and the qualifications to help others. It doesn’t take no degree of any kind. There are those who do help others because they love people and want to help other people as people will always need people no matter what. The day that I get to that full manhood is unknown to me at this point, but when I finally get there, I know that I will be truly happy.
Forgive me for rambling as I do have a lot to say regarding this, and the healing process from abuse and all other sorts of negative things that have happened to me throughout my life. I know that one day that I will reach that much treasured plateau. When that will be, I don’t know, but it will be a happy day indeed.
Thanks again Christy for your encouraging words.
Wow, your life is my life. Your my clone. LOL
I was about 10 to 12 years old when I knew I was different – I was attracted to boys not girls. When my friends started to look at girls I started looking at my friends. But I lived in a Mennonite family and though sex wasn’t mentioned it was quite clear that anybody who would live or do things with the same sex that was intended to be done with the opposite sex would burn in hell for all eternity. So I suppressed it tried to date a few girls but even before the first date I would call them and tell them an emergency had come up and I couldn’t keep the date. I have only dated 2 girls in my life and I married the second one. I got married because I thought it would cure my gay disease as I saw it at that time. It didn’t work although it was quite good at suppressing the desires for about 10 years. After 10 years of marriage the desire became very big, in fact I loved to go and shop for my briefs because the pics of men in that department was as close as I dared to watch gay (PORN) – After about 10 more years I couldn’t stand it anymore and so I had a one night fling, this terrified me to the point of nearly getting a heart attack. My fear showed and my son asked me what was wrong with me, I lied and told him that the divorce of my brother had cause me so much stress., I was sure I would have aids now, and so I went to a clinic to have myself tested. I came out negative Praise God. I should go back a little I also went for counseling to my pastor but I never told him what bothered just that it was sexual and so he thought I had sexual problems with girls, and that’s how he counseled me I did not bother correcting him because I knew his stand against homosexuality. About 7 years ago I got caught by my son when he read an email I had emailed to a gay man, I had forgotten to close the email server. I wasn’t home and so he printed up the email and went to our pastor with it. When I got home he confronted me and told what he had done. WHEW I was ready to die. But then I decided to come clean and take good counseling and get this over with. I confessed to my wife she forgave me and I started counseling, after I finished the counseling I took a counseling course and counseled other men who had the same struggle. I though I was healed now God had cleansed me and made me whole. I helped many men get over the struggle at least that is what I thought, and I am sure some did over come it, but then one youth pastor I counseled threw in the towel and said “It doesn’t work, I have tried so long and hard it isn’t a disease and is just who I am.” I though about that and I broke down, I cried before God and I said to God “Who am I kidding?” I knew I hadn’t overcome it at all I was just suppressing it again. And so I came to the conclusion that I am who I am the sexual orientation I have cannot be changed I have been made that way. I am 60 years old and struggled with this for about 45 years of my life. I have now found a Christian married man, we are very close friends and we have the same issues. We love our wives and we love each other. No our wives don’t know one part of us, but they know we are very close friends. They see us as David and Jonathan. We fulfill a desire in us emotionally and physically and we also do that to our wives. This is probably not the best way but in our situation it seems to be the only way at this time. Thanks for listening – I would also ask that you pray for us.
This just breaks my heart. You and your friend have my prayers. I’m so sorry for what we as a church have put you through. Peace, peace, peace.
Yes, heartbreaking. Thank you for having the courage to share your story, SP. Blessings and prayers for you and your friend and your lives.
Well here I am still married and still in the closet. Sometimes I want to get out of that closet so badly because I am living a lie, but then I realize that I would hurt so many people and so I stay inside. I feel like a I am on the offering block and I am being lit on fire as a sacrifice without being slaughtered. I am being offered alive, yet I choose to let it happen. I do not know why and I do not have the strength to change it. My married friend came out to his wife and now that is even lost, then I found an old friend from years ago he is single and gay I did not know, now this friend has asked if I would like to go to Australia with him. My family knows him but again they do not know that he is gay and so they have told me I should take the opportunity to go with him, because Australia has been a life time dream for me. But I don’t even care so much about Australia I have fallen in love again, but I know it will only last for a short time because when I come back from my trip I will be forced to say good bye once again to a love. Thanks for listening
Satisfy “emotionally and physically”, what do you mean, a non sexual relationship? You don’t act out, you have someone to talk to, cuddle, hold hands, etc.., non sexual right? If yes, I have always longed for that. God has removed male intimacy off my list for the last 14 years. The fear of God (literally) keeps from acting out with another man. I am like David saying in the Psalms, “Take not thy Holy Spirit from me”. Even though I want to have sex with a man, I am compelled not to have sex with a man and I don’t want this compelling restraint removed. But I would love to have that emotional physical attachment with another man that is non sexual. Just a guy that we can hold hands, cuddle with etc.. but that door is shut for me. God will not open that door and because of the way I am sexually, I thank Him that He does not. It’s for my own good. Oh believe me there are many moments when I cry to Him, Why?
Is it maybe possible to consider living an authentic life, one that is not predicated on fear of God’s retribution and abandonment? Is is possible to consider that sexuality is a fluid dynamic, just as it is found in all of nature, and that human beings are naturally capable of committed, consensual, loving, accepting relationships of any kind or variety?
If it is even slightly possible for a person to be homosexual, loving, a child of God, and fully accepted in God’s sight, then is it possible for you too? There are more people than you may know personally that have no doubt of this. I have doubts about a lot things in life, but of this I do not doubt anymore. I hope one day soon Karl, you will not doubt it either.
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Like a scorpion, the stinger’s in the tail… saved that revelation about your sexuality for the last paragraph.
No, you’re not free from homosexuality. Homosexuality is not a crime nor a sin nor an illness nor a prison, so you can’t be free from it, any more than it makes sense to say that a black person can one day be free of being black.
I wonder what Paul (a very human, very fallible man) thinks of all the pain his words have caused. Kind of takes your breath away.
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Honey, what you are is a liar. Jesus never said one word about homosexuals but I’m pretty sure he doesn’t like lying. Think about it.
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Ok then. That’s that all sorted.
Though I find it curious that you feel compelled to capitalize the h in homosexuality like the c in Christianity. A Jungian slip, perhaps?
Capitalization is a conservative Christian compulsion.
Does this mean you desire women sexually now? What are the specific outcomes of being healed?
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So the answer is “no”. Perhaps you might want to consider if a loving God wouldn’t fully restore someone’s “sinful” state to a “normative” condition? Why would God be so cruel? He causes liars, through His Grace, to become honest. Abusers to be peace-makers. Addicts to not desire drugs or alcohol. But he doesn’t replace homosexual desires with heterosexual ones. You’re still trapped in those desires.
If you need to pursue peace like this then that’s fine, it really is. But there are some young men and women on this forum who might be reading this from you and get very confused so it’s our duty to let them know that they can obviously be both gay and a Christian. That your own personal testimony is your experience and I won’t question that. But for every one of you, there are hundreds of very happily devout gay Christians in exclusively loving relationships, marriages where it is legal, raising beautiful kids and living beautifully holy lives.
So… you’re not “cured,” in the sense of being made heterosexual, you have just decided to live a life without love.
It’s important to say that because that’s the truth, not what you are saying about being healed.
Once again: there was nothing wrong with you originally, so nothing has been fixed.
“Homosexuality is not a crime nor a sin nor an illness nor a prison, so you can’t be free from it, any more than it makes sense to say that a black person can one day be free of being black.”
But, it’s not a sin to be black. The scriptures do not speak against being black, it does condemn the act of homosexuality though and that is an established law not only in the Earth but in our conscience. Even if one never read the bible, or went to Church or heard a sermon and they do something wrong, their conscience is pricked and they know that they have done wrong. Laws of the land can be changed to suit gay rights etc, but the law of the universe will never change, it still will be in the minds of men and women that it’s wrong, unless one becomes reprobate and can’t discern between right and wrong.
Karl’s true colors– it took all day for him to get honest, but he finally proved himself ignorant and bigoted in the end.
You came to the wrong place to let this nonsense sit without being challenged.
Wouldn’t it be nice to put all christians who are narrowminded in a gas chamber and finally get rid of them? The world would be a better place. Rome tried to do that back in the day. Even ole Daniel whom his own political peers could not stand because he stood as a righteous man they plotted against him, changed the law so they could trap him and finally get rid of him. It’s happening all over again. The laws are being changed so the Christian can’t do what those who have been chomping at the bit want them to do, to Shut-Up! And that is what they wanted Daniel to do as well, to Shut-Up. Sin hates the preaching of righteousness. It can’t stand it, it either has to bow to it or run away. Sin always rises up in anger it does not want to be exposed as sin. It desires to be tolerant. This too was not written with venom, but I did feel a slight bit of righteousness rising up in me. Which happens from time to time when I am writing from the word of God.
How dare you refer to yourself as if you were being persecuted and claim that someone here suggested gas chambers when no one but you has done any such thing. Really, how dare you? How dare you, the one persecuting innocent people by preventing them from marrying their loved ones, pretend to be the victim here? Slink away in shame and hide under a rock.
Karl, gay kids are the number 1 group to commit suicide because of the terror of being labelled “sinful” and the culture they are forced to live within as a result of us attaching sinfulness to being gay. They are kicked out of their Christian homes, they feel like they can’t have a relationship with God because they can’t change, and their Christian friends and family often shun them when they are honest about their struggle. It’s clear you’re going through a lot here but consider that you’re actually not being spiritually persecuted – consider that this is about the damage you and others unwittingly do to kids as you take your own, narrow interpretation of Scripture and make it declarative for these little ones. They are trapped in self-loathing and a real fear of losing everyone in their lives that they love. This really isn’t about you, ok dude? You’re a grown up, you’ve made your own choices. Fine. Peace. But the challenges you’re experiencing here are geared toward those kids. Not necessarily you. Not everything is about you.
No, the scriptures don’t say being black is a sin, they say it’s a curse. That’s because parts of the scriptures are evil because they were written by fallible human beings who hated their dark-skinned neighbors.
Being black is not a curse, and being gay is not a sin.
You may want to look into the possiblity of a divided spirit. It is possible that via trauma (even prenataly) a man’s spirit can be divide resulting in a twice-a-soul condition. The bible calls it being double minded. Healing is available if the divided part will submit himself to Christ and allow Christ to reintegrate him into the rest of your spirit (the married father who is thoroughly heterosexual and obedient to Christ sexually). I have heard of this kind of sexual ambiguity happening as a result of a parent who really wants the child to be a girl (probably the mother) and you were born male instead. Her spirit effected the development of your spirit while still in her womb. Not necessarily what happened to you, but a possibility.
Jason – really? honestly? come on – wake up
James 1:8 A double minded man is unstable in all his ways.
James 4:8 Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you. Cleanse your hands, ye sinners; and purify your hearts, ye double minded.
Jason your reasoning is foolish. The double minded man is the man who is betwixt between two opinions. He feels the conviction of the Holy Ghost to trust in Jesus through Grace but wants to trust in his ability to remain in control of his own life through the works of the law.
Gay or Straight? Broccoli-eater or Not? Wearer of Corduroy or Organic Cotton?
We make choices even though we may have internal “inclinations”.
Effeminate men are not necessarily attracted to men sexually. Masculine-acting men could very easily be intensely attracted sexually to other men. Homosexual stereotypes are woefully inaccurate. They have become the bartering tool used between a “movement” and media/advertising.
I am a mid-40s married dad who has known and acknowledged my attraction to the same sex for a decade. I am also a Christian. Before acknowledging my nagging “burr in the side”, I acquired several degrees in theology from Southern Baptist institutions. My family and I served as pastor to a few churches and even took up the mantle as “church-planter” in Western Europe.
In Europe, the small flicker doubt about my sexuality became a thoroughly stoked inferno. One can deal quietly with a minor inconvenience. This was as much of an inconvenience as an orange-sized boil on your nose. Time for a total life evaluation was at immediately required.
My wife discovered my interests via a search of our shared computer’s history. Inside, I wanted her to know. However, this news would simply be the last straw that would disable the camel. And it did.
I immediately lost my family, friends, career, identity, and most importantly, hope.
Christian counseling started with this statement from the counselor, “I could medicate you into a stupor or we can forever peel back the layers of your soul like an onion. Take a week and think about it.” I have always been fond of onions.
The capitulation happened 10 years ago.
For 9.5 years I have walked with an elderly minister who shares the same struggle. He has shown me the love of the Father. Unconditionally embracing my guilt and holding me until I knew that God, indeed is the supplier of grace. My sexuality is unique. So what! My big toe is unique as well. Well, the left one is unique. The right one is rather ordinary.
Oh, this is very important. After 6 weeks of separation from my wife, she took me back. She said that God told her to accept me and that His grace would be her strength. God was correct. My wife was correct. We celebrated 20 years of marriage last May. Our relationship is very dynamic. My sexuality is simply a platform upon which the Father has demonstrated His identity to me, to my family, and to others.
I love men. I love my wife. I don’t love women in a lustful manner. I might at times I struggle with thoughts of wanting to be embraced, absorbed, praised by, and locked in hand-to-hand sweaty mortal combat with another like-minded man. When this happens, I defer to God. I ask Him to take the place of my desired male lover. Umm, and guess what? He does, gladly.
Better would have been knowing and admitting who you were from the outset, so your wife had a chance to marry a man who was attracted to her. She deserves that, just as you deserved to marry someone you were attracted to. I’m not saying you or your wife are wrong to stick with the situation you have now, just that it’s unfortunate the mess was made in the first place, and a culture of honesty about sexuality would have prevented a lot of feelings from being hurt.
I enjoyed reading that Brother.
Wow! So much to read here!
Tildeb, this is beautiful! And so, so true. We have to remember that – all of us. We have to not back down, but we have to remember to keep pushing forward without venom whenever possible. Which can be very, very hard! But yes, it becomes like arguing with a child, when foot-stomping was the fall-back response when their funny logic didn't work. And it's all cute from a four-year-old, not so much from an adult.
The thing is, in certain emotional areas, we remain stuck where we stopped learning. And if, in early Sunday school, you learned that God Is Always Right and The Bible Is Even Righter, and you stopped questioning any of that – well, then, there you are. Stuck, religiously speaking, in elementary Sunday School.
To move someone like that forward, who's never questioned that same rigid belief system since childhood, you have to move their hearts as you would move that of a child's. And sometimes, logic just doesn't work.
Lollipops, maybe?
I had to stop reading these comments.
Maybe for you straight people, this is just another thing to debate, like Great Commandment vs. Great Commission, but for some of us THIS IS OUR LIVES YOU'RE TALKING ABOUT as if it were nothing more than the political topic du jour. And yes, it hurts. It hurts when the people saying we're evil, sinning, perverse screwups don't acknowledge that that may hurt us in even the teeniest, tiniest bit, because, well, it's just an OPINION.
Do you accept neo-nazis hating people of color and Jews because it's just their opinion, or do you still think they're idiotic jerks?
I am so tired of people thinking that they "know what they're talking about" because they "know gay people". You know what? I'm so white I glow in the dark. Me knowing black people doesn't mean that I know what it's like when you drive through some white-bred little town in the racist boondocks and everyone stares at you or tosses an "n"-word your way. Me knowing Latino people doesn't mean that I know what it's like when some idiot in Arizona asks to see their papers just because of how you look. Me knowing Muslim people doesn't mean that I know what it's like when someone accuses them of being a terrorist just because they are Muslim. I DON'T KNOW WHAT IT'S LIKE. YOU DON'T EITHER. Please, stop talking about us as though we're fictitious characters in a book that you can analyze and project upon with abandon. We're people, like you. We're real. And yes, despite some of you thinking we're child molesting demons, we have hearts, feelings, and emotions. And you can hurt them. You can hurt them with your "opinions". You can tell yourself whatever you want so you can sleep at night, but it doesn't make it true.
Someone, in one of these threads, when someone else made a snarky comeback, said that we should be an example of Jesus' love by loving those that would persecute and/or hate us.
At some point, you have to stop being a doormat and defend yourself. At some point, you have to throw up a wall to protect yourself from others' actions. At some point, the only rational response is a fully extended middle finger. Telling us to love the haters is like telling an abused wife to love her abusive husband and keep on taking it, no matter what he dishes out. There is a difference between forgiveness and victimhood.
Telling us to love and admire and respect those that would harm us, and continue to harm us, is part of what leads gay kids to hate themselves and attempt suicide! If their beloved, respected teachers/parents/relatives/friends/pastors/whatever keep telling them that they are evil, horrible creatures, and they don't say "well, forget them" and keep on loving that harmful person, they are likely to eventually BELIEVE that they are evil, horrible creatures, hate themselves instead of the haters, and kill themselves. Just as some abused women believe their abuser's rhetoric that "they deserve it". They don't, and neither do we.
So, screw you guys. I have a pretty high tolerance of BS and have done my share in my life of gently and as non-offensively as possible "debating" with people who maligned what I am. But today, I am done. I am done with you thinking it is perfectly acceptable to judge me when you don't know a damn thing about me other than the fact that I like women. I am done with jerks like you driving me away from what once was a happy place (that is, church) because I felt like I didn't/couldn't belong among the self-righteous and hateful. I am done with maligning myself because so many people seem to think I'm worthless as a human being. It's not for you to judge. The stonings are over. We are past the old testament.
You are not representative of xtianity. You are representative of bigots hiding behind their religion to justify and excuse their bigotry. As such, I am done listening to your hate speech. I don't get angry often, but I am angry today, and I am sorry if this post is too much, but I left the church because of jerks like you, and I'm questioning today why I thought I had the thick skin to immerse myself back in your filth at all. I couldn't sit here and not say anything again, and just quietly slink out the back door, never standing up for myself. I couldn't smile and stay silent when my very being was being attacked AGAIN. I'm done hating the sin (your attacking good people) but loving the sinner. I am done acting like it's OK for you to treat me like I am any less deserving of love.
Bravo, bravo, bravo.
{{{{{denver}}}}}}
Oh, man. I am sitting here between drafts of an article with tears running down my face. You are amazing. I wish every single LGBT kid had your strength – and I wish NONE of you had to listen to the hate.
As for myself, I apologize if I've ever come off sounding like I'm discussing fictional characters. When I write anything in support of gay rights, two things are swimming through my mind underneath it all. First, the sweet faces of two of my daughter's closest friends, a gay boy and a bisexual girl, as well as the faces of several LGBT couples and single parents I know, and their wonderful children.
Second, I remember clearly the first time I felt like a momma bear defending her cub, when I saw a magazine picture of a child making fun of a child who looked like mine. It was a parenting article about how to teach your kids not to bully – but the photo was of a little girl pulling her eyes back to make Asian eyes. The unfettered anger I felt at that moment was immense – completely out of proportion with the fact that I was looking at a photograph illustrating an anti-bullying article. But that was MY CHILD being made fun of, and it hurt like hell. My child was probably a year old at the time, and lots has happened in the intervening years. But I've thought about the feeling a lot – how African American mothers must feel when they have to teach their sons that they will be unfairly targeted by the police. And how parents of gay kids must feel, knowing that so many out there in the big, bad world would call their precious child all the bad words you listed.
I know I don't know what it is like to be gay, to live with the burden of society's disdain for your very being. I would never profess to know. But I do know what it is like to love someone who is different, and to want nothing more in the world than to protect them from those too ignorant or damaged to know better.
I hope you know there are a lot of us out here who, if you'll let us, have your backs.
Thank you, Mindy, I very much appreciate your post. : ) I haven't read anything that you've said and felt that you were one of the "projecting" ones – no need to apologize at all for you haven't done anything wrong. And I appreciate you standing up for people you care about, and people you don't even know.
I am glad to see that so far no one has been offended by my ranting… when Wren the Grammar Nazi doesn't check her disagreeing pronouns (I just re-read that), she is ranting at the page. ; ) I normally try and step away and cool off if I'm fired up, which is rare to begin with, but today, I just felt that I needed to let that be said.
Thanks, Denver. Now who is Wren the Grammar Nazi? Because I have to sit on my hands sometimes not to correct a variety of grammar pet peeves when I read them online . . . ! I think Wren and I might get along swimmingly . . .
HA – me too. I am currently taking an online history course as part of my degree, and my prof said something like, "We just updated the syllabus. Please let me know if any links don't work, any errors, etc." And I was like… do you REALLY want me to tell you about all the errors, or just the broken links? Because you are opening a dangerous door… I should get English credits for this… XD
If it wasn't clear, denver = Wren. That's me.
Continue my story – Sometimes those that scream the loudest are part of the hurting – I was one of those. I made sure people would hear me how anti-gay I was, because I wanted to hide behind something and hiding behind the wall of homophobic was for me a good hiding place. So some of those “gay bashers” are gay. I’ve been there done that. It’s a big shame and I admit that I was a big rotten hypocrite sitting in a pew in church looking at the handsome guys, but making sure anybody who knew me would know that I was not gay. But I was. How do we cope? Some like me hide behind the homophobic wall. I don’t take part anymore in gay discussions because I cannot stand doing that although I still am totally in the closet as you can read in my previous comment. I don’t know if I will ever be able to come out. It is just too complicated at this point, but I have been teaching my kids and grandkids that “bashing any person is wrong regardless what we think of their life style” and so my family is a loving family and we do not go marching against gay rights marriages etc. Anyway thought I would put in my 2 cents worth.
Thank you and kudos.
…And the moneychangers' tables were overthrown….
And this is where it all gets very real.
Dear Conservative Christians who keep batting leviticus and Romans around for fun,
Nobody cares that you have gay friends. And no one cares that you're so horrified at gay kids being abused, bullied and driven to suicide. All we care about is you not hurting people anymore (even if you don't intend to). If you don't care about that more than you care about being right about this? God have mercy on you.
It helps, Denver, to know that bigotry will not win out in the long run if each of us just does our part in confronting it. Consistently. Patiently. Bigotry is a lie and most people have less cognitive dissonance when they bring both heart and head into supporting what's true over what they believe justifies their bigotry.
Remember that changing people's hearts is a hard thing to do. It is not an event so much as a process and we can see it happening here. People are comfortable with their biases and they have no trouble expressing it seeking support from others. When their bias is confronted head on, we see anxiety start to creep into the reasoning and the rationale that supports it. When those reasons behind the bias are shown to be at least questionable, people often retreat behind tradition and popularity and false certainty that there is nothing wrong with maintaining their biases. But there is. It doesn't feel right. It needs protecting from all those 'meanies' out there.
When these kinds of arguments fail to reduce the confrontation that bigotry stimulates, fails to reduce the anxiety that results from cognitive dissonance, fails to to reduce the feeling of somehow being both right yet conflicted, appeals to emotion are made to the confronter, appeals that the biased person is actually a nice person who intends no one any harm who is trying really hard to understand what the problem really is. The answer is even more disturbing: the problem is within.
When the confrontation is sustained in spite of these appeals (often quite heartfelt and honest), people get angry that none of their maneuvers have worked. They still feel conflicted and take it out on whomever seems to be the source. This is a really good sign! They regress into anger, petulance, and name-calling on the same emotional level as the four year old they once were because nothing else is working!
But they have recognized something in themselves that they don't like (because we really aren't just petulant four years olds) and it wiggles around in the back of their mind eating away at the protective coating of their bias. And that worm is the worm of what's true.
Eventually, when the opportunity presents itself and the person feels the need to get rid of the conflict, most good people will allow their their hearts to embrace what their heads have tried to deny: the truth. And when that is embraced, then your purpose to confront has been rewarded even if you are nowhere around to enjoy having done what you could do to help bring it about.
It doesn't matter if you are right; it doesn't matter if you win. What matters is if you have done your part to help change hearts by giving those who are unaware of their bias the tools necessary to change themselves. And all of us become better people for having suffered through the experience.
Proof of something about sexually active gay men??? I don't know, maybe the CDC is just lying because they are bigots Huh Denver……….the rate of new HIV diagnoses among men who have sex with men (MSM) is more than 44 times that of other men and more than 40 times that of women. The rate of primary and secondary syphilis among MSM is more than 46 times that of other men and more than 71 times that of women, "While the heavy toll of HIV and syphilis among gay and bisexual men has been long recognized, this analysis shows just how stark the health disparities are between this and other populations," said Kevin Fenton, M.D., director of CDC's National Center for HIV/AIDS, Viral Hepatitis, STD, and TB Prevention. "It is clear that we will not be able to stop the U.S. HIV epidemic until every affected community, along with health officials nationwide, prioritize the needs of gay and bisexual men with HIV prevention efforts."
Source: http://www.cdc.gov/nchhstp/newsroom/msmpressrelea…
So based on these findings Sexually active gay men are either 44 times more stupid than straight men or 44 time more promiscuous.
You're mistaken in the conclusion that that means they're 44 times as promiscuous or as stupid.
Even if their only twice as stupid/promiscuous—twice as likely to have a sexual encounter with a infected person while not themselves infected, or with an uninfected person while themselves infected, without using a condom (part of which increase may be due to not having to worry about the possibility of pregnancy)—you can still get discrepancies much higher than that in the course of time. For example, if for every infected heterosexual there is a 1 in 4 chance of giving it to someone else within a years time, then for every infected homosexual, the chance of that would in this case be 1 in 2, easily contributing in the course of 25 years to an infection rate nearly 100 times that resulting among heterosexuals after the same period of time; yet we speak of a rate only 44 times as high.
*Even if they're. . .
Thank You Mathew. I love it when I can learn something new. I wish I had exercised my brain more all these years. I would've sounded smart too. Oh dear I think I'm starting to become a bigot against my own self. Oh the pain oh the agony. I am a house divided. I think I will go now and just fall………………(he said laughing at his own dumb self)
I guess you tell I'm all tired of this one now. Yeah, yeah, yeah I know to all you serious folks out there. It is serious when kids are killing themselves and growing up hating themselves and leaking disease all over the place. But for the grace of God………
Mindy is right of course. But I still maintain that homosexuality is the big symptom. It is the proverbial elephant in the room here, not promiscuity. Mindy can say all she wants to support her friends but she hasn't lived it. All her knowledge is second hand. She knows only what she is told, not what she has lived.
Oh Look! MarkF has a new screen name . . .
And so having a higher rate of disease (in THIS country… the same does not hold in places like sub-Saharan Africa) equals evilness? Even if they got it from self-destructive behavior… do you treat overweight people with diabetes like they are less than human? "Well, you did that to yourself, so screw you"? And what about those of us that AREN'T engaging in such behavior? And the straight people who are just as promiscuous? I don't see you throwing stones at them. I fail to see how rates of HIV/AIDS infection have any logical thing to do at all with the fact that you think that we are less than human, and deserving of less than equality. There are various diseases that are more prone in people of certain races too… are you going to use that to excuse racism? Excuses.
I would like to respond to DonP's posting about that CDC survey. I was pretty shocked when it showed that one in four gay men were HIV and didn't know it. As you will come to know me you will discover that I am infinately curious. So I did a little fact finding and would liek to share that with you because those statistics are pretty shocking.
First off the sampling, they went to metropolitan centers that they though had a high concentration of gay men. Then they went to gay bars and recurited in person, then they tested. Only 43 percent of the gay men voluntered to participate, remember only 43% of gay men who go to gay bars, participated. I am sure that they were offered free testing as part of the deal to get them to go along with the survey.
So IF you were a gay man praticing unsafe gay sex and you had an offer of free testing prolly you will say, "Sure I would like to participate" BUT if you were a gay man, who practices safe sex you prolly said, no I don't need to be tested so I don't need to participate.
Not surveyed of course are the millions and millions and millions of gay men who live outside of metropolitin areas and or do not go to gay bars. Like gay people I know.
The CDC lays this out in their notes, but of course the newspapers just grab the scary headline and run with it. I hope this information will help everyone here.
AIDS is a very bad disease. But in order to get a population of gay men surveyors have to get them from somewhere so they head to gay bars and this population is NOT representitive of the true gay population. They just happen to be in one place so it makes surveys possible, but always skewed. Especially DonP I hope this information helps you.
Can I hug you? (I haven't got AIDS, just a head cold.) ^_^
Wasn't it Churchil who said never to trust a statistic unless you've faked it yourself?
A few weeks ago I read online that The Guardian was reporting on a new survey showing that only about 1% of peeps were queer, not the usual 5+% bandied about. They even made the explicit point that this ought to put this whole same sex marriage in perspective, since we are talking about so few peeps – as if that was reason to withhold even one person a civil liberty. But when you read how they did that survey, it by going door to door and asking folks when they were all together in one room with their families. To protect annoynmity they didn't ask them to state out loud if they were fags, though, but showed them a little piece of cardboard saying all-fag. mostly-fag, mostly-str8, all str8 (well, they phrased it "attracted to members of your sex" or something like that) then pointed at the different levels of queerdom and had them say (out loud, in front of their whole families) "stop" when they were pointing at the appropiate level.
Oh, and 3 or 4% gave no answer, but the article stated (without explanation) that there was no reason to assume that those 3 or 4% were anything but purest vanilla straight.
And then some peeps on here wonder why we feel harassed or oppressed, or intolerant to those who do so…
Well aren't you the industrious little old thing, you…….. So I guess my second sentence would apply in your mind.
Look, I've been there. I have lived it. We gay people can be great fun, warm charming loving, you know all the normal cool to be human stuff. Underling the whole state of affairs though is a blatantly self destructive lifestyle that thank God I found my way out of. Did I become straight? No! But I live according to what I believe my God's plans were from the start (Believe me, that hole on your back side was not put there to put stuff into. It is only meant to expel the poison. Seems to me that the function of that thing ought to be a real big clue. Whether or not you believe God or Darwin's evolution made the hole, it is clear what it was made for. Expeling poison-not putting it in.) Should gay people be condemned because they are gay? No!
If the Bible is true and if I have read it right then homosexuality is just a sin. Sin is sin and we all have it in our lives. If we are Christians we need to love as Christ loved and loves. "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone." We should not be going around pointing fingers. Just living our lives with thankfulness for the one who has paid God's price for our own sin. And, by example, loving people out of the need for sin in their lives. Most all the examples of finger pointing in the Bible especially the New Testament are directed at the Church anyway.
This sin in particular and for every man I ever met in self help groups I attended years ago, is the result of a lack of the right kind of love in ones early childhood. It is a subconscience attempt to fill an emotional void. We are very good at hiding what really motivates us. We do it with sex, drugs, lies, narcissism and when none of that works we play on the sympathy of those ignorant of our plight. "Poor little down trodden me. Look at what society has done to me".
The only proper response to Gays by Christians is love. Love was the missing ingredient right from the start.
Don, I am very skeptical that you were gay and are now cured. I do not believe you were ever gay. I think you are simply MarkF or maybe his brother or something.
I have read plenty of posts by gay men and the way you write does not ring true.
There is no way he is gay. Some psycho right-wing tea bagger pretending to be gay, ex-gay, whatever.
That makes total sense “Thanks Grandma” It would be like testing heterosexual prostitutes for disease to come up with a % of how many heterosexual women are spreading disease. Isn’t that correct? Maybe my example a little exaggerated, but it brings the point accross
You like to learn, DonP? Well, here's an opportunity:
Germs and viruses and bacteria are 'equal opportunity' employers that, unlike you, couldn't care whatsoever in the sexual orientation of their hosts. Surely if they have the wherewithal to treat people equally, then we (and especially those who claim our morality is god-sanctioned) can find it within ourselves to do the same. Maybe I'm aiming slightly higher than you to think that I can at least match if not surpass one of these little boogers in the moral department.
Sorry I posted this under the tildeb instead of Denver
You are right, DonP – it is a tragedy. It is a symptom of a greater problem, and one that needs to be addressed. But your findings there are at the end are not exactly scientific.
Did you miss this nugget there in the report?
"Additionally, factors such as homophobia and stigma can prevent MSM from seeking prevention, testing, and treatment services."
Is it such a stretch for you to imagine that gay kids who grow up loving themselves, because they are accepted and loved by their families and communities, would be much less likely to engage in self-destructive behavior like this? Be *more* likely to seek healthy, monogamous relationships rather than promiscuous hook-ups? It's no different than any other segment of the population, DonP – if you grow up with permission to love yourself, you will. And if you do, you'll take care of yourself – because you'll know you're worth it.
Mindy you are right of course. But I still maintain that homosexuality is the big symptom. It is the proverbial elephant in the room here, not promiscuity. You can say all you want to support your friends but you haven't lived it. All your knowledge is second hand. You know only what she is told, not what you have lived.
You know only what YOU are told, not what you have lived.
Sorry DonP – I've lived it, living it now, and have to agree w/ Mindy. Gay relationships can be exactly like straight relationships. It's a matter of finding the one you fall in love with and being faithful to that relationship. Gays have had to live in secret for so long that the best they could do was to just satisfy the sexual urges. Now more and more gays are finding and maintaining healthy relationships. And I"m sure it will get even better once we are allowed to marry – in my opinion, we'll probably have a much lower divorce rate than straight people.
And as far as what the Bible says about homosexuality, I classify it the same as eating shellfish.
@tildeb, who's post started with this, "It helps, Denver, to know that bigotry will not win out in the long run if each of us just does our part in confronting it"
I wish I could write like you, I tend to be very blunt and it gets me in trouble sometimes. I have now ability to write like you so I have copy and pated what you wrote above and am saving it. I hope this is okay with you when I have the need to use this from time to time that I reprint this, I'll give you credit of course. It is just so well written that it is bound to make people read it and consider what you are saying wtihout being threatened. I especially liek the part where you write that we may not be around to see the final transformation even though we had a part in making it happen. Thank you so much for this post.
Thank you for your kind words, SG.
You'll notice I comment under a pseudonym to remain anonymous. I do that for a couple of reasons (privacy being one) but the main reason is that I think ideas stand or fall on their own merit. If anything I write here you find useful, you are welcome to it because I don't own the ideas; I merely express them as best I can having borrowed them from smarter and brighter and more articulate people who passed them on to me. Now it's your turn if you so wish, to incorporate them and pass them on as you see fit, to be one in a long chain of caring and compassionate people who wish to add their mark in some small way to leaving the world a slightly better place than one found it through the expression of ideas that matter.
You are one of the coolest, tildeb. You fascinate me, I admit. Your intelligence is only surpassed by your compassion. That you protect not only your identity but your gender, and do it so very well, makes all that you write that much more compelling. Thank you, for the effort you put into sharing those ideas.
Thank you Mindy. We all love a mystery!
At the risk of offending some, I ask for your indulgence to let me explain why I comment as I do here on what I recognize as a christian blog.
I am a gnu atheist and as such I feel it is important to show that, on issues that matter, all of us as people share far more than the beliefs (or lack of them) that so often divide us. And what matters most, I think, is compassion (‘com’ meaning ‘with’ in the sense of something shared, and ‘passion’ meaning suffering). We are in this world together and what brings us closer is this sense of sharing the trials and tribulations and triumphs of human life, what John and many others call ‘love’.
I can appreciate because I’m fully human what it means to another to suffer like I do – whether that suffering is an artistic expression that falls just short, unrequited love, personal loss and tragedy, pain and injury and betrayal, even a child advancing to some new endeavor leaving a part of childhood behind forever (tough not to cry when the child heads off to school for that first time filled with such excitement and courage and armed with nothing but optimism).
But so too can I share the passion that infuses all of human life with so much potential meaning and purpose through love and adventure and excitement and common achievement. We share all of our humanity even if we share only someof what our different ideas of what that life should look like.
When I come across this sense of shared suffering – our common humanity expressed a zillion different ways – undermined by particular religious beliefs, I feel compelled to speak out. Not always well, not always effectively, not always kindly, but with an intention that is good, an intention to bring people back to what we share. In the same way that criminality is determined by intent to cause harm, so too do I criticize beliefs whose intent is to divide, to reduce human welfare and human well-being in the name of obeying and pleasing some other-worldly agency. Too often this attempt to impose one’s religious belief on others – no matter how heartfelt the case may pretend to be – is done to raise one’s lesser self to a more elevated place in the belief hierarchy, as if piousness itself is more precious to whatever creator agency is believed in than the actual welfare and well-being of others. Those individuals who are willing to sacrifice the welfare and well-being of others in the name of promoting them selves in the metaphorical eyes of some deity need to be confronted for their selfishness, stupidity, for their lack of empathy, for their arrogance and effrontery, for their misplaced priorities, and worst of all for their intentional perversion of that which binds us together: compassion – of shared suffering with other people in this life, in this place, in the here and now. In its place comes this belief-twisted caricature of compassion that is equivalent to becoming god’s jackbooted bully in order to share the deity’s suffering. It’s a form of illness of human spirit, one that is so blindly extended into the world through misogyny and bigotry and intolerance for what is just, what is right, what is good. We know better. And we can do better.
Religious belief opens this door (and often makes these divisive acts into virtues) as much as it opens a door to community and love and good works and to sharing beliefs of like-minded people. I think religious belief is unnecessary to achieve the same positive results (for what I think are better reasons) under different secular enlightened banners and ends up causing more harm than it does good in the conglomerate. I also recognize that the choice to hold religious beliefs is not my call (I’m not the one promoting the idea of the Thought Police). Each of us (but only in a secular liberal democracy let us remember) has the legal right to believe whatever we want that juices our religious engine but we don’t have the right to impose those beliefs in any way on others without undermining exactly that same right! (It’s a mystery why so many fail to recognize the importance of this very point when it comes to one’s primary worldly allegiance between a specific religion and the state, especially those who denigrate enlightened secularism in the name of extending their religious beliefs into the world.) Sometimes that fact needs to be pointed out to those who seem to be so willing to sacrifice it on their religious alter.
Finally, I have come to the conclusion that religion and all its negative effects can be all but eliminated if each believer holds true to keeping the positive beliefs they cherish wholly private (especially from children). We can be just for the sake of equitable justice and fairness, do what’s right for the sake of being ethical, be good for the sake of our common morality. Religious belief is not a better foundation (nor the only foundation) upon which to justify these goals and their achievement, nor is it central to determining and exercising what is just, right, and good. We can gather compassion in our hearts regardless of our beliefs and spread it like seeds through compassionate action as our testimonial to having lived honest and full human lives.
Well, I already said you are one of the coolest. I can only add that this explanation is, to me, breathtaking, and I hope it is read and re-read by everyone who stops by John's blog.
I wish I hadn't stopped by here again. There's so much that I want to say and argue and think about, and I possess very scant amounts of free time. Perhaps someday, when I'm more available, I'll come back.
For now, though, I just want to encourage you all for expressing your beliefs and whatnot in an open forum. Christians together, as they say.
To tildeb – Among all of the posters here, you are the one I'd most like to engage. Your comment was well written and showed, to me, a mind open and kind. Oh how I wish I could neglect my work for a while and just talk. Ah well.
Farewell, all of you. I am so very glad my friend pointed me here. It's helped me solidify my beliefs, even through questioning and doubt.
God bless.
Denver,
TOTALLY!
Standing O
Yes I see what you are saying, like you are some inatimate object.
It is like what parents do to a child, the child can be standing right there and the parent will talk to the teacher as if the child isn't even in the same room.
I have a different name, I call them CINOs "Christians in Name Only"
You go girl, MWAH.
Hip Hip hooray. We all should stand up in public and say what you have said. I think the day is coming when it will be necessary. Kudos to you. That was powerful!!!
When God says, “Thou shalt not have sex with man like you have sex with a woman”. Is that hate literature? Is God being hateful?
Jesus hung around sinners and loved them and still does and would not condemn anyone does the hanging around sinners mean that He accepted their sin or accepted them?
When the woman who was caught in adultery was thrown before the feet of Jesus, he did not condemn her, but told her, “go and sin no more”. He loved her but He did not love her sin. He told her to forsake her sin.
God says that men having sex with men is a sin. Does God hate homosexuals? Absolutely NOT!! But He will never condone the action, He tells us to forsake it.
Now, if you love your sin, by all means get your fill of it.
If you don’t see your sin as sin, then your problem is not with Christians, your problem is with God who established that law in the Earth.
If Christians are condemning homosexuals with the act of homosexuality than those Christians have never known God. For God does not condemn anyone because He didn’t come in the person of Jesus Christ to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved. Homosexuals will not be condemned by God and should not be condemned by Christians. However, condemnation exists outside of Christ, only because Life is in Christ. If your in the Ark of Gods safety…Christ, than your safe from condemnation, but outside Him is death and destruction. That is the law that has been established in the Earth at the cross of Christ that whosoever continually puts their trust in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.
Thank you, denver. This conversation is hard to read for exactly the same reason. I don’t ever want to insulate myself from people who do not believe the same things I believe, but there comes a point when I just can’t swallow any more.
Somewhere up the thread Mark F. wrote (to me), "You’ve got to live with your own conscience. You can shut me up but not the truth that you can’t tolerate dissent." As with virtually everything else he's dumped here lately, about that he's wrong. I'm fine with "dissent." I'm not fine with toxic assholes. He's blocked.
Lady Justice, thine name is John Shore.
Uh…wait that's not quite right. O_o
Thank you, I needed to LOL and you just made me do that.
I have only been on here a few days so I don't know the history with MarkF but immediatly after I read his entry about his life (the first thing I ever read from him) I had a very sure feeling that he is not, and never has been gay. There are people who do that you know. They say they are gay on these websites and then tell how awful it is, and nobody can question them because after all he should know since he is gay. It's a scam.
Let me set this out, I am not gay, I really am a Straight Grandmother, but I have an interest in GLBT issues so I click from here to there on the internet and I have read quite a few posts from "real" gay people. I am like 99.9% sure he isn't. It was just a cover to spew hatred. You are right to ban those kind of people.
I’m a 51 year guy who lived as an open homosexual for over thirty years. I came back to the Church almost three years ago. My dedication to homosexuality was a barrier that I had to overcome and I’d like to talk about that some.
Age has its benefits. One of them is, finally, some wisdom. None of the responses on here really has hit the nail on the head. Much of what’s been said is true. None of it has hit the key issues revolving around homosexuality itself.
Yes, for a man to be married to a woman who doesn’t know him is wrong. It’s probably a sin too.
I’ll try to be brief. More people have been injured by homosexuality than who have been hurt by the harm that sometimes happens when people oppose it. Many more. It is a complicated issue but I’ll try to shine some light on it.
Everyone can spot the self hatred that fills the original man’s letter. He’s convinced that his parish will reject him, as if it’s something totally new to them. He’s plagued with guilt, talks about falling to his knees to be cured. of this. To be charitable, anyone can tell that we’re dealing with a very troubled man. To be blunt as I usual am, I’d call him a head case.
Many will see his confusion as coming from this awful, horrible anti-gay Christian society. It’s not. The self-hatred we see here comes from within, from the same wound that caused his same-sex attraction. This fact is all important. This man is just at the starting point for a very long healing process. He is in fact, to be blunt again, clueless about what’s happened to him or what’s going to happen to him.
Homosexuality starts in early childhood from trauma, neglect or abuse. It’s caused when the child does not identify with the parent of the opposite sex. It’s cause when a young boy can’t see himself as his father, or when a girl can’t see himself as her mother, or when the child doesn’t feel a part of the peer group. That wound leads to the same-sex attraction, which adds fuel to the fire of self-hatred.
At this point, many decide to come out. This is what society pushes on us all the time now. The problem is that homosexual lifestyle itself cause more damage. No one on here wants to admit that. It’s not the same as heterosexuality. At best, it’s like a casually promiscuous heterosexuality. At worst it’s demonic. What I’ve found is that very few straight people want to believe what homosexuality really is like. It’s much worse than you think. It’s a life that is filled with drugs, kink (of a kind that I refuse to describe on a Christian site), alcohol, disease and death. Everyone thinks that they will be the exception, that they will make it. No one does. Relationships last at best a few years. Many are “open relationships.”
Homosexuality is a pagan god. This is what St. Paul is talking about in Romans. If you don’t believe that God does not support homosexual conduct, then you have to either conclude that Jesus (somewhere) instituted same-sex marriage, or that he believed that same-sex couples don’t need to get married. You’d also have to believe that nearly 2,000 years of the Church and her fathers, doctors, saints and holy people were very stupid for not noticing this. You’d also have to believe that we, in 2010 are so much more holy than the accumulated knowledge of the Church.
It’s a long road, but I’m finally at a point where I realize that my own same-sex attraction is just a temptation to sin, like all my other human weaknesses. I don’t demonize it (like the man who wrote the first letter who gets down on his knees to be “cured” does.) I don’t white wash it either.
Gay suicide? In my over thirty years of dealing with homosexuals, I only met one person who was kicked out of his family for being gay. I grew up in a working class family. I received nothing but acceptance, albeit that they didn’t want to hear the details. They all knew and liked my lover. What I’ve seen is that the families who kick a kid out were screwed up to begin with. A normal family does not kick a kid out of the house. And remember what I said above…homosexuality comes FROM family problems.
Gay suicide is not a product of external society. Take a look at last years Dec. issue of the Advocate. They list the top ten deaths of famous homosexuals in 2009. Three out of ten were suicides. That’s 30%. These were all out homosexuals. Suicide is part of homosexuality, just as is kink, promiscuity, raunch, filth, and yes, the sexual abuse of kids.
Child abuse or neglect leads to same-sex attraction, which in turn leads to more psychological damage. Self-hatred is both the cause and affect of all of this. It’s a cycle. Acting on the attraction leads to more problems and more and more.
I suspect that very, very few will understand this. I suspect it has to be lived and be seen. Though I feel for the men who wrote the original two letters, I also know that there’s little I can do to help them. At the end of the day, they’ll find that homosexual action is a waste of time and worse, that the inclination to this is no obstacle to God’s love, and that ultimately it’s no big deal.
What I mostly don’t understand is how anyone can think that the Church, as I know her, has never experienced a person with this problem before. My experience is that when I tell someone that I have same-sex attraction, their response is just to tell me about their own past sins too. But narcissism is a big part of homosexuality too so I guess that’s to be expected.
The exception more often than not, proves the rule.
@MarkF, Bingo! That is exactly what I meant when I said to Mindy above: "I suppose tongues are made different when tasting exotic fruit Huh? Some are poisonous though you know."
I am a witness to and agree with the bigger picture you have drawn here.
Thank you for posting this.
And to "straightgrandma"….me smells something more ( less ?? ) than a straight, self effacing, little old lady here. Bet you got a mini dress on under that pretty little Hawaiian moo moo. ;-} ,,,,,,,,,,,,,, or "somepin' "
Ha ha? I'm afraid my mini dkirt days are over, I am a bit older than MarkF but I take it as a compliment that you have the impression I am younger, what woman doesn't want to take a good 10 years off LOL!
MarkF writes Child abuse or neglect leads to same-sex attraction. Citation please.
The self-hatred we see here comes from within, from the same wound that caused his same-sex attraction. This fact is all important. Fact? Please cite source.
Homosexuality starts in early childhood from trauma, neglect or abuse. Citation please.
It’s caused when the child does not identify with the parent of the opposite sex. Citation please.
It’s cause (sic) when a young boy can’t see himself as his father, or when a girl can’t see himself (sic) as her mother, or when the child doesn’t feel a part of the peer group. Source please.
That wound leads to the same-sex attraction [...] Citation please.
Your argument is causal. You are saying that some kind of childhood damage causes homosexuality. I call bullshit on you.
I think this ’cause’ exists only in your mind where you believe it to be true but is not backed up by any good evidence that shows this causal link. Show us the studies that establishes this causality, please.
Without this central pillar of your argument substantiated by independent verification, the rest of your claims falls into bigoted speculation. You are allowed to speculate, of course, but don’t present it as if it is true and don’t pretend it doesn’t cause real people real harm.
Not only is your speculation without merit, I think, but it runs contrary to today’s well documented understanding. Professional medical and therapeutic organizations like the American Psychological Association has a library of peer reviewed studies of research into its causes, origins, and development that have consequently led to its removal by the APA from its list of diagnoses and disorders. You see, MarkF, if you really care about what is true you will find that the devil is in the details. It has taken quite a while for speculations like yours to be shown to have no merit. Until now, that is.
Your task ahead is a difficult one, MarkF: you must show why all these studies have reached false conclusions and how their data and/or processes are flawed, why the conclusions reached are incorrect and on what basis, and how your speculation provides better reasons and superior evidence for the conclusion you have reached than those from professional peer reviewed organizations. Your task is daunting but in your quest for truth, I’m sure you won’t mind adding to our collective knowledge. I know I would appreciate it.
But if you’ve got nothing but your speculation, then consider changing your mind based on best evidence, best practices, best reasons rather than a simpleton’s version of “because I think Big Daddy says so.”
I lived this. I lived it for over thirty years. I saw it in thousands of people I've met.
Studies only capture what people are ready to admit to.
Other than saying that, I feel no great need to play ping pong with someone who starts off with profanity.
Thousands? You've gotten the personal stories of thousands of people? Are you a researcher?
Listen, Mark. Mic you are truly at peace with your state of being? I'm a fan of that. I don't think you have to justify this to anyone. Our interior is a tricky business for others to qualify. That you want to extrapolate your experience and make it formulaic fir everyone isn't something I can get behind, but you get the last word on who you are.
I grew up in a loving family I was never abused I loved my father and mother they would have given their life for us kids. So Mr MarkF where did I get my attraction for same sex at the age of around ten or so ? and how come didn’t I ever have the attraction to women? even though I married one who is a very loving kind wife. So tell me why have I always had same sex attractions and more then opposite? When I was in counseling my counselor tried to persuade me that I must have had some trauma and then even to the point that maybe when I was a baby or even before birth and so I accepted and believed it for a while, but now I know that is all BS. But many think that is the case and so the think they have just blocked it out of their mind – That is also BS.
Thank you, tildeb. Well put.
Thank you, tildeb. MarkF, I’m sorry, but you’re right, I’m not buying it. Not because I don’t understand it, but because I know far too many people who are the antithesis of your “argument.”
I am your same age, so I have a bit of wisdom under my belt as well. I’m straight, but have several gay and lesbian friends, most of whom are living happy, normal lives in monogamous, long-term relationships – some of whom are married, some not, depending on where they live and if it is legal. Most are raising children – some of the most delightful, insightful kids you’d ever care to meet.
My teenager has gay friends, and they, too, are some of the greatest kids ever. From normal upbringing, and, fortunately, supported by their families to be whomever they truly *are* inside. For some parents, that acceptance has been harder than others, but mostly because they fear what their children will face out in the world – people (like you) telling them that who they are at the core is wrong.
You may have had a lousy childhood, you may know other gay people who’ve had the same – I know lots of straight people who had unbelievably horrible childhoods – and remained straight through it all, even though they lived through hell and all the abuse, neglect and trauma you can imagine. You are calling “causal” on something that is, in actuality, “coincidental.”
Sorry – but until you cite all those studies that prove your points – and they need to be valid scientific studies, not anecdotal Christian studies – I’m not buying it.
I'm much past the point of debating over this. I say what I've seen and then move on.
I will say that you don't know squat about homosexuality unless you've lived it. Rule one, always unspoken, but always present in homosexuality, is NEVER to tell straight people what really goes on. Ever. I know it from the inside. I've known hundreds of men who talk to me openly about molesting young boys. All of them have lives that look normal on the outside. All of them tell me that no one knows about this part of their life.
I can't make you believe something that is deliberately hidden from you when you have your eyes closed.
I was a gay activist for years. I witnessed how messed up the life was. I used to blame it on society too. But the longer I lived it, the more I could not cover up what I saw.
An ocean of tolerance has not changed things one bit.
So, you will go away now, right?
More of that famed liberal tolerance on display.
More of that famed conservative self-righteousness as well….
Hey, dickweed. I haven't deleted any of the nonsense you've here written; I haven't blocked you. But I will, I can tell. You'll make me.
Liberals love censorship. It's like the old Soviet idea of freedom. "You have the freedom to believe as you're told."
"We love all diversity, just not diversity that disagrees with what I believe."
This is called the dictatorship of relativism.
Liberals also love profanity. And personal insults.
You've got to live with your own conscience. You can shut me up but not the truth that you can't tolerate dissent.
Sanctimonious, pompous, full of insults and resolute refusal to see outside of his own experience, and itchin' to blame it all on liberals. Yep, sounds like a conservative.
I am a proud liberal. I have not insulted you. I have doubted you, but that isn't the same. I am annoyed that you choose to apply your experience to all. I have indicated that I believe what you say happens, I just don't believe that it happens to everyone. I'm not swearing at you (well, maybe a little on the inside), and I can live with my conscience just fine, thanks.
What you don't understand is this: When a liberal says they love diversity, and then fight against an opposing point of view, she is not fighting against your right to hold that point of view, or even to speak it. She is fighting against your using your point of view against other people. You are welcome to believe homosexuality is wrong, bad, evil. You are not welcome to ruin the lives of gay kids with your hate. There is a difference.
I don't go out and try to make straight Christian kids pretend to be gay, just because I support gay rights. Yet you, who are against gay rights, expect gay kids to pretend they are straight and be OK with it.
I'm not. They're not. And our generation, the one whose gay population may be fairly screwed up, is loudly trying to keep today's gay youth suppressed just as they were.
Does that make sense to you?
What do you say to these kids?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KxfWl1vA1u4
I guess clean language full of misplaced moral opprobium is better than profanity laced with righteousness, huh?
Mark, I'm debating you. Never once has anyone here accused you of not experiencing what you say you have. We're just stating that it is not true for everyone. It just isn't.
My feeling is that if being gay was not demonized by the outside, the inside would not be so effed up.
I do, however, believe that in many cases, gay people coming of age now rather than in our generation will have much healthier relationships, because they are not being demonized everywhere. The suicides of late prove that we still have a long way to go, but there are children growing up right here where I am who are openly gay, accepted by their communities and families, and by all accounts leading functional, productive and contented lives.
"my feeling is that…"
"by all accounts…"
I've been the clean up man for countless people who looked normal on the outside. This is my whole point. It all looks normal on the outside. You don't know what is going on because they won't tell you.
These public forums are very sterile places. People show the face they want to show. It's unreal. One-on-one in private, even people who are very dedicated to homosexuality admit to me that I've described it accurately.
And we'll take your word on an anonymous public forum. Showing your face.
That's a two-way street. I have no idea if you're lying or not either. I assume you're not.
Thank you, but by your statement that "people show the face they want to show" you must exercise a fair amount of skepticism about interactions on this blog. So you'll understand the reciprocal skepticism.
Especially when you state "I already said, I don’ t debate with people on here. It’s pointless. I don’t like to play ping pong…" and then continue doing so, I must exercise a certain natural skepticism.
I'm sure it's just because I have substantial experience with trolls.
Plus, this lying fool tipped his hand by saying, "I don't debate with people on here." That means he's been here before; he's been down this road on this blog. (Otherwise, he'd have said, "I'm not going to debate people here.) He has virtually all the markings of someone who came here before, got beat up, left, and is now back with a new screen name. I'd bet a lot that's what happening. They always smell the same.
O ye diviner of IP addresses….?
MarkF – I'm talking about teenagers, young kids who are in their first relationships or who have acknowledged their sexuality but not yet had a relationship. Kids who still live at home, with their supportive and loving families. Kids who could not possibly be involved in what you are talking about, because every minute of their days are accounted for. Kids who have good home lives, kids who are happy, successful kids. They are not living in the throes of some dark, sinister lifestyle.
As to us liberals always deferring to authority, that's simply laughable. I'll defer to a documented authority, multiple studies that show the same results time and again. Otherwise, I remain skeptical. You and the conservative Christians, however, happily defer to the authority of the Bible no matter how out-of-touch it might be.
What I won't defer to is someone who takes his own experience and applies it, blanket-like, to an entire population, completely dismissing the idea that he might not have the full picture.
I don't doubt that the problems you describe exist. I would even acknowledge that for gay men in our generation, those problems are widespread. I acknowledge that your experience is probably just as you describe it, altho' I take exception with the idea that you know the personal histories of "thousands." I could be wrong, but I have my doubts.
You, however, refuse to acknowledge that the lesbian couples I know, who are contentedly working their jobs, maintaining their homes and raising their kids are happy. You refuse to acknowledge that the gay couples who run their own businesses and live quiet lives together, tending gardens on the weekends, having friends over for dinner, spending holidays with their parents might be "normal."
Your "all or nothing" stand is what is suspect. Because that is rarely, if ever, the case.
You refuse to acknowledge the possibility that growing up in a homophobic world was as much or more the problem for your thousands of dysfunctional gay men as anything and that if homophobia was put to rest, they might live their lives like everyone else – some incredibly successful, some terribly dysfunctional and most falling somewhere in between – just like us straight folk.
You'd be surprised at some of the secrets straight people keep, MarkF. Nearly everyone has . . . . something.
You came and you shared your experience. Thanks for that. To me, all it gives is yet another example of how dangerous our homophobic culture has been for kids growing up gay.
I'll just say that I used to believe all of what you said. I devoted years, decades really to that belief. It didn't stand the test of time.
You may have faith in a new and improved homosexuality that is just around the corner. So did I for a long time.
BTW, I'm not a conservative Christian, i.e. Protestant. I'm Catholic and we look at the consensus of the faithful throughout history, the Bible and Church councils as our guide.
One more thing I quote MarkF It’s unreal. One-on-one in private, even people who are very dedicated to homosexuality admit to me that I’ve described it accurately. END OF QUOTE In our society where homosexuality is still seen by many as being abnormal and many believing that there must be an outside cause for it I believe that many will because of that agree with MarkF even if they support homosexuality, but real studies prove otherwise. Yes I am sure that for some that is the reason. As I said already I accepted what my counselor told me that I must have had trauma in my life but I would have been too young to know. But I didn’t have any trauma and so I don’t have a so called “reason” for being gay except that I just am. I just wish that I had had support when I was younger then I wouldn’t be in the situation I am now. Just support the kids already who are what they are. If homosexuality would be accepted as being as normal as heterosexuality then there would be a lot less promiscuity going on among the the gay community and therefore a lot less disease being spread. When you know you are what you are and then you need what you need but everybody tells you, you are evil, sinful, crazy, then you will get what you need regardless if it is at the evil, sinful, crazy places that are crawling with disease.
I have met pedophiles both homosexual and straight in their child preference. I have also met hundreds of gay men in groups for men trying to change their sexual preference. I must say that my experience is that gay does not equate to pedophile.
There are many demons that try to re-write a mans mind, soul, body, identity and preferences. I know of these first hand. I like to think of it as demons strap nuclear devices to wonderful people perfectly capable of a love for a lifetime. These devices can alter the persons identity, emit radiation which cause dissection and anger and can destroy a families life in seconds if not detonated by family deliverance. There are trained bomb detonators in the world. I wish men and women would see that there is a better way and get help.
Amber
Ok, I find your claims to be not only repugnant but downright impossible! How disgusting and low to claim there is some “secret” gay agenda and that we’re all (or mostly) really child molesters! The stats have shown that the vast majority of child molesters identify as straight. I am a gay man, I have known hundreds of other gay men & lesbians and not EVER has the subject come up except with disgust at the sicko who did it and sympathy for the victim. I find your claims to be hateful and inflammatory! I am the father of 2 young children and I have never, would never and could NEVER view them as sexual beings let alone touch them in an inappropriate manner…or ANY child for that matter, disgusting and untrue! You are a vile and evil person for making such untrue and damaging claims against our community….karma’s a bitch!
AMEN Christopher
Experience makes me know and I don’t need to submit citations to prove scientifically that these things are so. The gay community always looks to science to justify their lifestyle. They do know the science that if you get a child exposed to homosexual behaviour when they are very young then they have a better chance that when those kids grow up there will be very little opposition. The push to have our children exposed to sex at such a young age is the result of a rotting society bent on it’s own destruction. Psalms 9:17 The wicked shall be turned into hell, and all the nations that forget God. Why is it so important that a child needs to know that a p*nis is okay to go up the rectum of a man?
When left alone and he grows up without any influence or promptings, he will normally, like all creatures on this planet find their female counterpart and mate.
So why is it important that children know that it’s okay to put a man’s p*nis in their mouth? Or lick anus’s? or swallow semen? Did you know that you have to work a man’s anus to loosen him up in order to have sex? This could take some time, and you have to do this each and every time you have sex and did you know that a woman’s organ naturally expands and you don’t have to work on the opening each and every time? When female animals are in heat, their organs expands to accommodate the male organ. But the male anus does not, it has to be worked with tremendous amounts of lube and even then it hurts. Each time this has to be worked. And this is what you want our children to know how natural it is? Seems like a lot of work to me.
One of the rules of science is that your claims must be falsifiable; in other words, that I can potentially prove them wrong through observation and experimentation. A real scientist never claims that their conclusions are absolute, universal, or fixed–which you do right here.
In applied science, we understand that the actual, lived experiences of real people trump any amount of theory or writing about those people. Writing is by its nature fixed, but life is happening right now, all around us.
Thus your experience is a valid one–but it is not the only one. To actually get a clear, coherent picture of the LGBT community, I would need to go and talk to many, many people. I would need to read, and think, and question. I may also draw on my own experiences as a member of the LGBT community myself. And even then my conclusions would not be authoritative, but rather a picture I have made based on the information available to me.
I don’t think anyone is advocating telling children such details. I can still remember my high school sex ed, and most of it was simple shaming, with no discussion of LGBT issues at all.
You come from a place of horrible pain, Karl, but I can’t allow you to force your pain on others unchallenged.
Your sexual knowledge is a little lacking. Seems to me you could have used some sex ed of the type you’re denigrating.
First of all, plenty of women swallow semen. Second, not all gay men have anal sex. There are many ways to have sex and that’s only one, it doesn’t define being gay. Third, yes, women usually do need to have their “organs worked” to enjoy sex. It’s called foreplay, and I feel sorry for your female partners. Fourth, women don’t come into heat. They can be sexually receptive even when not fertile. Fifth, more straight men and straight women have had anal sex than gay men.
Oh good grief, Karl. Specificity isn’t going to earn you credibility points, nor is speaking to the audience when you’re ignorant of how the ‘female organ’ actually works, amongst all the other things.
How about you ask all the LGBTQI people raised by straight families how that worked our for them?
WOW! This man deserves an applaud! It is the most difficult road for a christian to be led down a path of temptation and to resist! The fact that this man is tempted by sin and yet, still chooses to love his wife is an admirable trait that any human being would be lucky to possess! This man, is the prime example of everything I've ever argued for. He feels as though he "can't help it" and sometimes temptation feels that way. Every christian goes through temptation, but it takes a particularly strong person to choose to do the right thing despite what they want. This man is evidently a man of God because he OBEY'S him and that is ultimately how we show God that we love him. Some people may think that this is a sin and an abomination but really, it is just temptation. It is sexual sin, the same as lust, the same as pre-marital sex. It's sin. But he will be rewarded for his persistence to love his wife and children and for his persistence to seek God. Hang in there buddy, your rewards will be great in heaven!
thanks for clearing that up!
I believe that they are dismissing themselves, A. Here's why. Entering into a dialogue where someone is going to plainly, directly tell you the consequences of your actions and not use kid gloves while they do so is a *choice*. And Christians need to learn how to really engage the population that is not their #1 fan without running off when we encounter people who are furious with us. In short, we need to grow up a little. Christians often have a rather neurotic need to be liked all of the time in my experience. I don't need you to like me. More importantly? That gay kid in the shelter right now could give a crap if either one of us like one another or even respect one another. Know what I mean?
As far as what you offered regarding liberals and conservatives, you're spot on. Scripture does tell us who the enemy is, it's wise to be mindful of that. But I am right there with you, I go through that same thought process. For me, I guess I land on what is consistent. What would a loving God do who actually gave up His Son? What would He care about most? At that point, things just get very clear for me. But you know, if I'm wrong then I'm accountable for any damage I do as well.
Hope you participate more!
Okay. I understand and respect that, but…
God calls us to be patient. I think that dismissing people because they are resistant isn't quite right.
Suffering is everywhere. It pangs me deeply, believe me. But the Sword of Truth isn't a weapon to turn on people. It's a weapon of defense.
And this, too, assumes our interpretation of the Bible is correct. Which reminds me – what do you think of my later two paragraphs of my original response?
It doesn't exactly assume that our interpretation of the Bible is correct. Rather, it's just quite simple most of the time to determine what is correct if you let the Holy Spirit be your guide. And then your interpretation of the Bible would have to conform to that—it has to be about something that you can relate in all truth to the rest of the world outside the pages of a book—in order for us to think our interpretation correct.
Speaking of the sword and scripture, the Lord said, "Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to turn ‘a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law—a man's enemies will be the members of his own household.'"
As for patience, this is connected with perseverance, and indeed DR's patience on the issue is beyond measure.
Hi – I came here directed by a friend's link.
I found the content of this blog interesting in all respects, and I found John to be very genuine and very open. It is good to know that some people can be rational about Christianity and homosexuality. The "hot-button" status of this sort of argument tends to make people a little overly passionate, in my opinion, and it's refreshing to see such a safe harbor, especially here on the internet. The amount of goodwill contained in this blog (especially directed at gays and others who suffer difficulties in society) is nothing short of heartwarming.
However, I am rather confused at how "liberal" (I use that word aware of its connotation, but not intended as an insult) Christians can attack the views of "conservative" Christians in such a manner. Granted, these "conservatives" seem to me as being misguided, and often, offensive, but it seems that many here with even the purest intentions come down too hard on them. You argue that they are incorrect, and this is not where my contention comes from. Call me a hippie, but what is dubbed "tough love" seems to me unnecessarily harsh. I suspect that this is because, even when attempting to speak rationally, the "conservatives" come across as judgmental – indeed, their statements ARE judgmental. However, the fact that they are judgmental gives "liberals" no reason to be judgmental in return.
On that note, I would try to direct your attention to something that has been the core of my problem with Christianity since I was adolescent, and has been reignited from this visit. It seems here that everyone "knows" the Bible, that they can "prove" things and decide what is right and what is wrong, based on that context. The term "conservative" often is taken to mean that someone who has been fed ideas and morals and accepted them as true, and thus stagnates. The term "liberal" has come to mean someone who is a "free-thinker" and forms their own opinions. My problem with both of these methods of thought is that often, both wind up becoming the SAME EXACT THING. Liberals, in this sense, have simply created their own opinions, as opposed to being taught it, yet they arrive at the same result: stagnation. They accept what they believe as absolute truth. I feel that both camps live without questioning why they believe what they do. A great deal of people feel that life is wasted in thought, yet I sincerely believe the unexamined life in not worth living to begin with.
God is infinite; we are finite. I feel like this is a Christian byword, which, repeated so frequently, becomes shallow. I challenge you all to think about the deeper ramifications of this statement – He is wise, and we are not. If, as Christians, we are to live a life devoted to him, how can we judge what is right and what is wrong? How can we judge what to believe? The answer may be obvious, but even it bears questioning. The Bible. It is somewhere referred to as the source of wisdom. Okay… but what does that mean? Is it a literal manual, each and every word to be followed to the letter? "Liberal" Christians and most rational "conservative" Christians would likely disagree. Why? Errors in translation, literal and allegorical meanings, outdated-ness (though I feel that reason lacking, I probably shouldn't ramble more) – the reasons don't matter in this discussion. Okay. We've thus established that the Bible can't be taken literally. What I ask now is HOW we, as Christians, must interpret the Bible. It is this question that perhaps, out of the three that lead me to question my faith, that bothers me most, and is most relevant to any kind of Christian commentary on homosexuality.
Who among us is wise enough to interpret the only true source of wisdom? And therein lies the problem. Agh. My brain can take little more of theology/philosophy for tonight.
I feel like by making these statements/observations/what-have-yous I have become somewhat judgmental myself, and if so, I apologize. I merely was attempting to elucidate something I felt to you all. I am sorry if I seem to have spoken out of turn.
I would further like to digress and say that I worry I have become muddled and confused, and thus have become incoherent. My ideas made sense in my head, as did these sentences. Please do not cast aside what I have to say based on my inaccuracy in communication, as that seems to be the only other significant problem here, or even on the grounds of irrelevancy. I find this to be extremely important, and the very writing of this has helped me examine my own questioning Christian/agnostic status.
I appreciate any kind of response, and God bless you all.
To the letter writer – God loves you. Take solace in that fact. It's repeated so many times in the church, it becomes a Christian byword. But think about it. What that means, for you and for humanity. He LOVES you. As do a great proportion of the people who follow this blog.
I think your critique is valid. For me, being "tough" can certainly take on a level of passion that ceases to be productive. I'm guilty of that. For me, that passion is fueled by the anger that accompanies grief. I am grieving for the damage that the church has done to the gay community, to the children we've allowed to be abused. But hey, no excuses if I've pushed too hard then that's on my shoulders. Deb, a conservative poster actually provided some constructive feedback along those lines (thanks Deb if you're still reading).
There is a certain expectation that I've experienced among my christian brothers and sisters where we expect to be dealt with kindly. We believe we are rooted in kindness, and so we expect that to be offered in return. When we don't get it? We tend to focus on our feelings. But our *feelings* are often what keeps us buffered and once removed from the impact our theology is having on children who are gay as well as adults who manage to survive the experience, particularly gay kids in christian homes. Peoples' feelings are secondary. And sometimes being attacked is exactly what we need – sometimes not being liked is exactly what we need – to start paying attention.
So sure, some people don't feel great after reading here. In my opinion, none of us who are christians should feel particularly great about our role in hurting the gay community. So if people walk away really upset and offended? That's unfortunate. But that they never forget this conversation? That a little bit of it stays with them because they got shocked into listening? That someone didn't cater to their offense? I'll live with it.
Thanks DR, for responding.
You are absolutely right, I feel, when talking about how "we expect to be dealt with kindly." I think that far too often Christians (myself, included) fall into the trap of not wanting to offend anybody, of not wanting to shock or challenge people. But ultimately, that is what we are called to do.
I do, on the other hand, find your last paragraph difficult to swallow. You accept the results of the attack as "unfortunate." Despite how people feel after reading here, it seems problematic that people walk away "upset and offended." People who feel such a way are likely not going to respond well. Rarely, I suspect, will such an attack make them more open-minded, perturbed as they may be. "Shocking into listening," in my (granted, rather limited) experience, isn't a very fruitful tack when it comes to convincing someone of something, which, hopefully, is your intention. Rather, it seems reminiscent of intellectual bullying, wherein, after presenting what you believe, it becomes you tearing them down rather than building them up, and building up is an important aspect of Christianity, at least to me. Simply ripping apart the foundation for someone's beliefs doesn't necessarily make them want to adopt yours. Usually it just pisses people off. I mean – I could go into more detail, but I think my point is clear?
Well, here's where I'm at, A. There is a point where people need to hear that their intention really doesn't matter in the ways they want it to when kids are being hurt by their impact. It all comes down to what we're all really willing to learn and what we choose to be offended by.
Christians can choose to either be offended by me or people they read here. I used to have some similar beliefs and it took someone telling me that he didn't trust me at my core as a result of them. And I will never forget how painful that was, it shocked me and it made me angry that he held me so accountable to what those other bad christians were doing. He reminded me that we are all in the same tent. He was right to do so.
So people can choose to believe I am bullying them, they can see me as the bad guy and choose to write off anything that's being said as a result of that. Or they can honor the role of Truth – Truth being a sword – consider not being victimized and just listen without consideration of their *self* for a few minutes.
Lastly, I'm not here to change anyone's mind, I can't. People change their own mind. We truly to find what it is that we seek. There have been a number of Christians who have entered into this dialogue with a "let me clear this up for you" mentality and are absolutely shocked to hear that they are considered – in part – responsible for the damage gay kids do to themselves in this culture. What I'm doing is ensuring that these people understand the impact of their theology as it plays out in the vulnerability of children who are gay. No one wants to connect those dots, it's awfully easy to just keep talking about the Bible. And fine, talk about the Bible. But take it all the way. It's an issue of integrity, own the consequences of the implementation of your theology.
They can also r choose to set all of that aside and really listen to why people (like me) are so angry with them. Trust me – after you hold ravaged gay kids – literally, ravaged, they are sobbing messes – while at a homeless shelter with them because their loving christian parents kicked them out? Your tolerance and patience diminishes. And I know that tonight, there are hundreds of kids out there and that a bunch of christians are content to just bat the biblical verses of Leviticus around is fairly shocking to me. I'm pissed about that. I think more of us should be.
A, one more thing (and thank you for writing, by the way. I'm sure a lot of people who've read this thread have felt exactly as you do and felt scared to say something. Good for you, it's important and I'm really glad you brought it up).
Here is someone who has been deeply, deeply wounded by the christian community. Here is the "lost sheep" that Jesus says He won't leave behind. Here is someone God sent His Son to die for. And here is what he wants Christians to know who are upset that people like Dan are angry with them. It's a very difficult read, but you seem like someone who is truly pursuing the truth. So here is some truth.
http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2010/10…
Whoops – I missed this post. I appreciate it and am off to read it before bed.
Two things:
I feel like I'm playing Devil's Advocate. Eegads. x.X
I appreciate your responses. I feel like I'm becoming repetitive, but it is wonderful to see… intelligence, for lack of a better word, on such a crazy subject, issue, whatever. I hope to see similar responses from others (but not too similar. I like new ideas.) on this awesome site.
"…because their loving christian parents kicked them out."
You are making a bad assumption here. Loving parents don't kick kids out, no matter what they've been told at their church.
Homosexuality starts with problems at home, either neglect, abuse or abandonment. The family problems that you see with the kids are the cause of the kid's homosexuality.
Also, I've worked the homeless plenty. The first thing you realize when you work with the homeless is NEVER to believe the stories that they tell as to why they're homeless. You get stories from 50 year old guys who claim they're Vietnam vets! They would have been 14 at the end of the war then. But the story works, gets them sympathy and so they use it. My experience is that these kids also have to make up stories in order to get fed and sheltered. Then the media picks up on it and we have a while urban legend about horrible Christians kicking innocent kids out into the streets.
"Also, I’ve worked the homeless plenty."
Do you mean you've worked the homeless plenty or worked with them? Is this a Freudian slip?
No, it was just a mistake.
OK, how 'bout – their *supposedly* loving family kicks them out? Their family who pretends to be loving until, you know, their kid comes out?
And your continued insinuation that all gay kids come from dysfunctional homes is astounding – both in its incorrectness and your refusal to back it up with citations of any kind. Your anecdotal history is all you are basing this blanket statement on, and I can provide you with anecdotal evidence to the exact contrary. So where's your proof? I don't give a flying fig that you say you know all this – I have no way of knowing that you are even telling the truth about your own history, given that (a) this is the internet and you are an anonymous commenter, and (b) you haven't hung around here long enough to establish yourself as consistently valid.
You may be wiser at 51 than you were at 21, but that doesn't make you the keeper of all knowledge, nor does your brand of wisdom make you correct. Cite some sources to back up this blanket claims, or stop making them.
I already said, I don' t debate with people on here. It's pointless. I don't like to play ping pong.
I will say one interesting thing about liberals. They love credentials. They defer to authority figures on virtually anything.
One hundred and fifty years ago, science believed in phrenology. I also know many psychologists who tell me what happens to them when they dare to voice opposition to the collective nonsense that is enforced by real bullying.
I trust my own eyes and ears. People only tell researchers what they're comfortable with. Garbage in, garbage out.
So your promise to leave was just a tease.
150 years ago, religion believed (and defended) slavery.
You are making a bad assumption here. Loving parents don’t kick kids out, no matter what they’ve been told at their church.>>>
That was sarcasm. I think we all know that.
Homosexuality starts with problems at home, either neglect, abuse or abandonment. The family problems that you see with the kids are the cause of the kid’s homosexuality.>>>
Nah.
Also, I’ve worked the homeless plenty. The first thing you realize when you work with the homeless is NEVER to believe the stories that they tell as to why they’re homeless.>>>
Yeah, the problem with that is that I also worked with the families so their stories were real.
My experience is that these kids also have to make up stories in order to get fed and sheltered. >>>
Interesting. My experience is that these kids who are getting raped, beaten and pimped out after getting hooked on drugs after getting kicked out of their homes for being a "faggot" is that they would far prefer getting fed and sheltered at home.
I think StraightGrandmother nailed it, and that MarkF was a big fat liar-troll. I've never heard his sentiments, at least not about "thousands" of gay people, from anyone. Pockets of it, of course. Worse in some areas than areas, some age groups than others – but all those absolutes? Nahhhh . . . .
John did everyone a favor by blocking him.
Mindy: You don't know how big a favor. Well, now you do, since here's the last "comment" Mark F tried to post:
Yeah, I'll miss him.
As a Catholic, I know the Mark F's. When the scandal broke, a lot of Catholics pulled all of our funding immediately from the church, demanding that the Pope take responsibility for what happened. The Mark F's of the world called us traitors to the faith, etc. demanding we keep quiet. Of course now when it suits him, he pulls out the pedo card when would bet a year's salary in other discussions he is quick to remind people that the priest who were caught molesting kids is less than 2% (which is still so evil and gross).
Mark F, I think you're an older man who's found some peace with his devotion to Mary and to the church. As for the rest of your ideas, they are as outdated as Vatican 1. Do a little reading.
Oh my. Yeah, sure he lived as a gay man for thirty years . . . .
Wow. No issues there.
ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha
he he he he he he he he
MarkF, whatever…
I am NOT EVEN gay but I was able to spot a gay fraud or as Mindy says a Troll. John thanks for sharing that very last attempted post that there verifies it.
I think what is really sad is that MarkM and people like him that are soooooo stridently anti-gay really truly beleive that living life as a gay person is a horrible miserable life, and from what I have seen it is not true at all especially for the GLBT people age 35 and younger. I know many who lead really happy lives with a wide circles of friends and families who accept and love them. Do they experience discrimination from time to time, yes they do, but it is not a life as the fake MarkM describes.
Lately I have been watching YouTube videos in this channel called, "It gets better project" I watch a few before I go to sleep at night. After all these sucides that have been publicized lately Dan Savage wanted to make videos to give these kids hope that it does get better. I have really learned a lot watching these videos.
I would like to talk about one in particular that touched me. It was a man who identifies as queer (I am going to admit I am not real sure what the difference between a queer and a gay man is) and he was tormented so much that he wrote to a university as a high school junior and said, "Get me otta here and let me start college early" he wrote about how he was being tortured and taunted by students in his high school. Guess what? He got in, the Universtiy and it was a big name one, I don't remember which one, let him in and arranged for him to finish his last year of high school at the universtiy, and then he continued on and got his degree.
After watching numerous of those youtube videos and listening to what it is like Mark F's story just didn't ring true to me.
Yet this is a public forum; so what we say is not just for the sake of the one to whom it is directed. And even as they walk away upset, well, read tildeb’s excellent—perhaps divinely inspired—reply to Denver below.
Anyhow, building them up is vain; it is to the glory of man—it is to make of men towers of Babel. We are to bring together in the Spirit whosoever is destined to it, leave the dead to bury their own dead, and.
Do not think that the teachers of the law enjoyed being called out for the hypocrites that they were; do not think it didn't rip apart the foundation of their belief when they were told their ways would damn them to hell.
How can you ask us as a whole to tolerate our intolerance? (It's like how in America we tend to give up true independence in the name of our independence.) The one thing we have to fear is fear itself, as fear is what drives hate; and the presence of hate allows that it itself be hated—what goes around comes around—and thus is such a spirit doomed to perish. The spirit of love remains however through it all.
As MarkF said, "An ocean of tolerance hasn't changed anything," while you advocate for peaceful discussion over a real matter of spiritual as well as physical life and death. When someone is being hurt, you ought to speak out against it, and forcefully so. I'm not going to whisper, "Hey, guys, you know, I was thinking, maybe it’s not a good idea to hurt Denver's feelings," for example. No, I will butt in and say, "Hey, leave Denver alone, assholes!"
Matthew, thank you, you made me smile with that.
And StraightGrandmother, that University story is awesome! I will have to look that one up.
We had a kid at my high school who I think could fall under the "queer" category; he was tormented like hell and despite being very outgoing with his dress, spent all the times I ever saw him trying very hard to slip by unnoticed by his tormentors, head down, never speaking. Finally one day when I was a freshman, some guys were picking on him in the hall near my locker… and me being the brash fulfillment of Leo stereotypes that I was back then, turned to the group of jocks that were bullying him and said something like, "Leave him alone, will ya?!" Yep, I was not a timid freshman. Anyway, the kid turned on ME and yelled something like "stay out of it" and stormed off. At the time, I was really confused as to why he yelled at me when I was trying to help him. It took some time before I realized that little freshman girls standing up for him probably was not helpful to his reputation and could have made things worse.
He must have either been a senior when I was a freshman and graduated or he transferred elsewhere, because I never saw him after that year. But I always wondered what happened to him, and hope that he found someplace where he wasn't maligned just for being different.
Excuse me MarkF but I am having a very very difficult time beleiving that you are a 51 year old ex gay man. I have read my share of posts that gay men write and yours is nothing at all like them. I'm a skeptic.
Well, what can I say? Tell you how many Bette Davis movies I've seen? Do the secret handshake for you?
Here you should know this then. Who do gays and lesbians look up to as supporter and singer for "them" Not current like Lady Gaga (I first listened to one of her songs after she brought the discharged service members with her to that award show she was on), but one from maybe 15 20 years ago. I found out the anser in quite a round about way but apparently this singer is liek really "the one" and all the gays know this.
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