Cruelty
I do not understand why so many conservative people are outright mean when it comes to gays. There is a special cruelty when they talk to us (talk down to us, lecture us, chastise us). They don't just quote scripture, they don't just explain why they morally object, they are often intentionally hurtful.
Cursing someone to hell is not a casual thing to do. What adulterers or greedy financiers have they condemned to hell? Yet they freely proffer that destiny to gay people. Why? Why the vehemence?
We are just trying to pursue our lives. We are just trying to support each other. We are just trying to provide a safer environment for gay youth than we all had. We are just trying to find love in a hate filled world.
I have had professed Christians wave signs in my face and yell at me with a bullhorn telling me I am going to hell. Yet I would challenge anyone to prove to me that any LGBT protester would proclaim that to Evangelicals. Even the protests against the Mormons that are going on, I have not seen one sign condemning them to hell.
And cruelest of all, is their denial of the rights of people to marry the person they love. Think about it. To have to have your betrothal be voted on by people who don't even now you... Abjectly onerous! Can they even conceive of that? Can they even begin to understand the pain they cause? To think that if I wanted to marry Eugene, I would first have to ask the blessings of half the state. An injust and cruel hurdle forcing us to grovel begging for simple decency and be denied again and again.
That concept is unthinkable t0 conservatives regarding their own marriages. Yet that is the burden they gladly heap upon us. Cruel.
Perhaps it is about saving the children. For it is better that they condemn their gay children to unhappy lives alone or in sham marriages hurting not only themselves but their deceived spouses and their own children(been there) than wish them truly happy love-filled lives. It is better to deny children the parents who love them than have those parents be a loving gay couple. It is so important to inflict this cruelty that they will lie and decieve.
Perhaps I can speak on some authority there. See I was a gay child. I knew at 6, yes 6 years old that I was different. The other boys knew it too. None of us knew exactly why back then. But there it was. And I also knew I was wrong. I was flawed at 6 years old. There was something wrong with me and I also knew never to talk to anyone about it. I longed to be loved. Yet thhe only love I received was that of an actor playing a part particularly well.
And now I look back and think of how cruel a world I was born into that I could not be loved as a child because I was different.
I grew older and lived that life, denying who I was to live a life the church and society taught me at a very early age was the only acceptable way to live. I lived it for 42 years. I have known no other way than being gay. I have conformed, pretended, deceived myself and those around me. I hurt many people by being what they told me was good and right.
Yet this charade is the perverted vision of righteousness they offer. Seems a sad way to be Christian, lying and all. Yet our society has been insideous about denying basic happiness to gays. To think of the basic friendships I was denied. To feel totally alone is a high school class of 800. Forbidden the ability to court the person I liked in high school. Forced to dance with and pretend I enjoyed the company of my female companion more than I did. To be denied the ability to talk about my life at work. To be denied the ability to putmy beloved'spicture on my desk. To be forbidden from holding the hand of the person I love in the mall. All this and more is actively denied to us.
Why? Pure cruelty in the name of the Lord. Something Christ never spoke of is a rift in Christianity. Churches torn in two because of the audacity of some to reach out to gays in love instead of cruel spite. Ah the love for the sinner is so powerful. It rips denominations assunder. I guess there are just limits to how much some people can love their neighbor.
Hot ashes of scorn heaped upon our heads for simply asking for some respect. All we want is for them to quit hurting us. Why can't they do this?
Cursing someone to hell is not a casual thing to do. What adulterers or greedy financiers have they condemned to hell? Yet they freely proffer that destiny to gay people. Why? Why the vehemence?
We are just trying to pursue our lives. We are just trying to support each other. We are just trying to provide a safer environment for gay youth than we all had. We are just trying to find love in a hate filled world.
I have had professed Christians wave signs in my face and yell at me with a bullhorn telling me I am going to hell. Yet I would challenge anyone to prove to me that any LGBT protester would proclaim that to Evangelicals. Even the protests against the Mormons that are going on, I have not seen one sign condemning them to hell.
And cruelest of all, is their denial of the rights of people to marry the person they love. Think about it. To have to have your betrothal be voted on by people who don't even now you... Abjectly onerous! Can they even conceive of that? Can they even begin to understand the pain they cause? To think that if I wanted to marry Eugene, I would first have to ask the blessings of half the state. An injust and cruel hurdle forcing us to grovel begging for simple decency and be denied again and again.
That concept is unthinkable t0 conservatives regarding their own marriages. Yet that is the burden they gladly heap upon us. Cruel.
Perhaps it is about saving the children. For it is better that they condemn their gay children to unhappy lives alone or in sham marriages hurting not only themselves but their deceived spouses and their own children(been there) than wish them truly happy love-filled lives. It is better to deny children the parents who love them than have those parents be a loving gay couple. It is so important to inflict this cruelty that they will lie and decieve.
Perhaps I can speak on some authority there. See I was a gay child. I knew at 6, yes 6 years old that I was different. The other boys knew it too. None of us knew exactly why back then. But there it was. And I also knew I was wrong. I was flawed at 6 years old. There was something wrong with me and I also knew never to talk to anyone about it. I longed to be loved. Yet thhe only love I received was that of an actor playing a part particularly well.
And now I look back and think of how cruel a world I was born into that I could not be loved as a child because I was different.
I grew older and lived that life, denying who I was to live a life the church and society taught me at a very early age was the only acceptable way to live. I lived it for 42 years. I have known no other way than being gay. I have conformed, pretended, deceived myself and those around me. I hurt many people by being what they told me was good and right.
Yet this charade is the perverted vision of righteousness they offer. Seems a sad way to be Christian, lying and all. Yet our society has been insideous about denying basic happiness to gays. To think of the basic friendships I was denied. To feel totally alone is a high school class of 800. Forbidden the ability to court the person I liked in high school. Forced to dance with and pretend I enjoyed the company of my female companion more than I did. To be denied the ability to talk about my life at work. To be denied the ability to putmy beloved'spicture on my desk. To be forbidden from holding the hand of the person I love in the mall. All this and more is actively denied to us.
Why? Pure cruelty in the name of the Lord. Something Christ never spoke of is a rift in Christianity. Churches torn in two because of the audacity of some to reach out to gays in love instead of cruel spite. Ah the love for the sinner is so powerful. It rips denominations assunder. I guess there are just limits to how much some people can love their neighbor.
Hot ashes of scorn heaped upon our heads for simply asking for some respect. All we want is for them to quit hurting us. Why can't they do this?
posted by Scott | 5:23 AM
1 Comments:
Scott, your words could be my own. I remember thinking that I must have been made wrong or something. And I knew that what I felt was definitely something I could not share with others. So I peeked when I could and pretended not to notice my classmates when it would be dangerous.
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