Being a Gay Christian

How Many More

2011-05-05T11:05:00.000-07:00

"How many more gay people does God have to create before we ask ourselves whether or not God actually wants them around?" Rep. Steve Simon of Minnesota asked.

Go Unto All the Lands...

2011-04-13T12:28:00.000-07:00

I am not against proselytizing, per se, but when it becomes a judgemental assault on another individual, I believe it has drastically crossed the line.

Many religions, including Christianity, have a violent period in their history when evangelism looked a lot like open warfare, even masacre. Too many innocents were given the choice of repenting and/or dying, and many were not even given a choice. Of course today we are much more civilized, right?

Sadly, the bully apostle is still at work, though somewhat less lethal in most cases.

I am all for the free exchange of ideas. I enjoy discussing religious ideas and reading various authors as part of my meditations. I don't mind when I am challenged by an idea I may not agree with for it gives me a chance to listen to God's wisdom.

As a person who is trying to live an authentic life consistent with my values and morals, I have been on the receiving end of some rather unpleasant judgement and proselytizing. I am at a point in my life where I will not back away from a challenge, nor will I return to the energy-sapping shame that I suffered from during much of my life.

But I more offended now when I see others suffering what some have called "Bible abuse" or I have thought of as "Attack of the Pharasees 2011."

This takes so many forms from physical assault to hell-fire sermons to the perverse interpretation of hating the sin but loving the sinner.

Today I was checking my blood pressure at work. Next to the room with the BP machine is an empty room set aside for personal meditation including an accomodation to the many Muslims who work with us and whose faith requires frequent periods of kneeling prayer.

While I admire those who practice their convictions, I was deeply offended by what I saw as a mean-spirited, intolerant assault on Muslims.

On the floor of the room was a pile of Christian tracts from one of the fundamental churches where I live. To me this was no different than a Shia yelling condemnation in a Catholic church service or someone replacing the cross on an altar with a Star of David.

It was crass, disrespectful and just patently offensive. In other words, a direct assault on someone's faith.

This is not the first time I have found and reported such literature, but the first time I saw it in a place specifically set aside for people to exercise their faith without interruption.

It's not too many steps from there to "convert or die."

Creation and Existence

2010-12-31T14:31:00.000-08:00

As we close the first decade of the new millenium, it's a good time to write. First I want to let you know that I am still here and doing well, though there have been many personal and job related issues demanding the attention I would rather direct in other ways. I can't guarantee my ongoing availability but will write when I can and feel a calling.

Two things happened recently that prompts the topic at hand. First, a few months ago I took a short road trip vacation to ease my mind. Driving for me is a meditative time - when done correctly. That means finding winding backroads with little traffic that provide a constantly changing picture of creation both natural and human. I appreciate the architecture of both the natural world and humanity's version of creation via homes and towns and churches and roads and barns.

On my final day of exploring the Ohio River Valley through Ohio, W. Virginia, Indiana, Illinois and Kentucky, and after a hearty meal and a side of humanity at a local Waffle House, I noticed an interesting red box on the map along my route - the Creation Museum.

Well, I have to check this out, I decided and made the short drive to the place. Half expecting to see something resembling a large metal barn or factory, I was quite surprised to find a modern archtecturally pleasing complex complete with an intricate garden and a guard directing traffic as he smiled and bid me welcome in a strangely Stepford manner.

I was interested to see how certain people justified their belief in a 6,000 year old planet where dinosaurs and people walked hand in hoof and where all the geological wonders of the planet and astronomical marvels were created by a vary hands on God. And I firmly believe in the signs posted to honor their beliefs. I just don't share them.

Well when I got inside, there was much promise of a creationism marvel, but when I saw the $25 ticket price I balked. I only could spare a few minutes for a quick run through and the price seemed excessive for that purpose. I regretted not seeing the evidence they had chosen to convince me that the Bible contained God's own literal account of creation and that science was a mere deception.

More recently, as I was looking for content for my new Kindle, I happened on a free book written about 130 years ago titled "Bible Myths and their Parallels in other Religions." Considering that much evidence for such a book has been around much longer than 130 years, I began reading it.

I currently finished reading the first chapter concerning the creation stories (you did know there are 2 quite different ones in Genesis?) and it got me re-thinking about the museum again.

First off, I believe that a God that would create a universe billions of years old is far more believable and worthy of worship than one who took 6 days. Second of all, if the creationists are correct, that makes God rather deceptive in that we have been given the intelligence to discover the intricate wonders of creation only to find that our faculties are lying to us. I kone God has a great sense of humor, but not a cruel and sadistic one.

Take just the light of a distant start. We can see in the night sky the light of stars much farther than 6,000 light years away. Now which is easier to believe? That God created that star millions of years ago so that its light is just now reaching us? Or that God created that star only 6,000 years ago and also created the electron stream of light particles between us so that my eyes now would see the light that shouldn't be reaching me for a few more million years yet?

I also remember when my son and I stood at the rim of Crater Lake in souther Oregon. The sign before us told of a mountain thousands of feet higher than the 8,000 feet that is left. And that the top 6,000 feet were blown off in an explosion around 7,700 years ago that far surpased Mt St Helens in power and was likely witnessed by the Klamath tribe.

The interesting thing in the book is that dozens of religion's (eastern, western and new world) creation story is almost identical to the Biblical one. And most of these religions predate the Hebrews significantly. Now I also believe that ancient myths usually have some root in fact. For example flood stories probably coincide with the end of the last ice age and the dramatic rise in sea level.

These creation stories shared remarkable details such as creating man from dust, that woman was the cause of the fall, of a tree of knowledge and immortality, of a paradise and a serpent and even a dragon / cherubim guarding the entrance, and many, many more including a woman named Ivi. BTW, if you think a Cherubim is an angellic being, you might want to read a bit more about them. They are not something you want to meet on a dark night and equating them to a dragon is a reasonable thing to do.

So what event are all these similar creation stories talking about? To me that is the marvelous thing; to try to imagine what a world of cultures and peoples could be really describing. Was there really a paradise where people got along? Where food was provided by God and required no agriculture or hunting or gathering? Was there a time we really could talk to the animals? And was there a real tree with fantastic fruit?

So what do I believe? That the reality of creation is much more complex than we can currently understand. That while Adam and Eve may mythically represent first people, humanity did not descend from only two individuals. And indeed the universe is far older than creationists believe and that I cannot suspend rationality to join creationists in something that, to me, makes almost no difference in my faith. I also cannot believe nor respect a god who consciously and thoroughly deceives his people.

The book also points out that there is a theological quandry tied to the creation story - if man did not actually fall from God's grace in paradise, then why would he need a redeemer in Jesus? The real question is, does it matter? How important is it that Jesus brings Christians the return to God's grace denied us by the actions of Adam and Eve? Christ did so many wonderful, and mundane, things does this one responsibility negate the others?

It also seems like there is a lot of jumping through spiritual hoops (not to mention the millions of dolars to build a state of the art museum) to support the basic assumption that the Bible in inerrant. Of course some need the Bible to be inerrant, to be the 'facts' supporting their beliefs and supporting their actions. It seems an act of desperation akin to an osterich burying its head in the sand. Gone (in the West anyway) are the 'good old days' when heresy could be punished by death.

So whether you believe the universe is 6,000 years old or 6 times 2 or 3 billion years old...

Happy New Year!

Why I Describe Myself as a Gay Christian

2009-11-25T09:18:00.001-08:00

Dave left a comment asking why I characterized myself as a gay Christian. It's because for most of my life, nearly 40 years, I thought those two things, being gay and being a Christian were mutually exclusive. I know I'm hardly alone in that thought even with the strides society has made.

Growing up a preachers kid in the 70's, I was deeply ingrained with religion and society's stern disapproval of boys who like other boys. There were two drivers in my life - church and being gay. Both were all consuming, and there seemed no way to reconcile them.

I considered myself a Dr. Jekyll / Mr. Hyde type person - the good Christian, married, elder, teacher and church leader in the light of day and a man who had 'improper' lusts for other men in the darkness of my soul. I thought that not only was God unhappy with what I then thought of as 'sinful' thoughts but even more unhappy that I had no desire to repent of them.

I know now I kinda had them reversed, but it took years of soul searching, prayer and faith crisis to reconcile those two halves of my personna and begin to accept myself as a wonderful gay person who managed to savage his Christian faith.

Once I came to terms with who I was, a gay man using deceit and lies to masquerade as someone else, I worked very hard and built up the tremendous courage to come out. I then saw a real need to reach out to other gay people who have suffered from what some call 'Bible abuse' like I had and rather than bothering to retain their faith, rejected it completely and turned away from anything having to do with God.

This blog is one way I try to do that, to show that it is possible, though not easy, to be both a gay man and have a close relationship with God. It is a witness I give to others struggling the way I did that I don't have to hide in the closet from God or the church. That I can be a proud gay man with healthy relationships and have the acceptance and blessings of a loving, nuturing God. And by identifying myself as a gay Chrisitian on this blog, it is a sign for others who are where I have been that I have weathered the storm.

By the way this is not my sole identity or single place to write. It is focused on one aspect of the whole, the part that I wish to share to those who find me here. Which is why you will find little of my personal or work life mentioned here. Not because they are un-important, or that they are inconsistent with what I say here, but simply because you are here for the very reason I have claimed to be a gay Christian. And maybe others can benefit from my sharing the same road.

It is also a call for understanding from those who would condemn, who equate the term gay with sin, debauchery and God's wrathful judgement, and call for horrid alternatives like celibacy, desperate attempts to change what canot be changed or the closet in the name of God.

There was a day in my 30's when God spoke clearly to me perhaps for the first time in my life. He asked, "Why are you ashamed of the wonderful man I have created you to be?" That statement made me come to realize that I was wasting so much energy hiding the real me, pretending to be someone I was not, that I had no energy left to do any of the real work he asked me to do.

So now the oppression of the closet is mostly gone, my self-esteem is growing and my relationship with God and others in my live is honest and happy. One other time I heard God's voice was when God sent his peace to me at 10am, on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving in 2001 and forever drew me from my self-imposed exile in desperation and hopelessness into light and happiness and a renewed spirit.

So just as people who have struggled with and beaten cancer refer to themselves as cancer survivors, I in similar fashion have survived four decades of anguish and trauma to accept myself as a child of God, created proudly by him just as I am so I proudly characterize myself as a gay Christian and hope to provide encouragement to others working through their own reconciliations.

A response to Anonymous comment on the Sexual Sin entry

2009-11-24T13:27:00.000-08:00

I wanted to reply to the comment on my Sexual Sin essay on January 26, 2009, from Anonymous no. 2. First, I thank God for sending you to jostle me and the time in my hectic life to write a response.

Anonymous no. 2 started by saying…

I found it most interesting that you used no scripture to back up your claims, but simply your own opinion. It seems to me that God is not working through you, but you are considering yourself to be God. You should not base your assumptions off of other people's opinions, but off of the Bible.

He/she then went on to quote several scriptures. Now one issue I have with people who quote scripture is that for the most part no one is arguing the words that are in the Bible. The discord is in what those words mean to a person. Generally I find scripture quoters presume throwing out scriptures is quite enough to state their / God’s case and change other people’s minds or behavior, assuming the meaning has to be crystal clear.

The soul God gave me doesn’t buy into the whole “God said it, I believe it, that settles it” bumper sticker mentality.

One example of a lack of clarity from my own life was when I told some British co-workers that we would do the conversion at their convenience. When they chuckled I knew we did not share a common interpretation of my words, which were perfectly clear to me. One of them explained that ‘convenience’ in Britain is another word for toilet and they were picturing me doing a computer conversion in their home bathrooms.

The main reason I didn’t quote scriptures is that this is an essay on the sociology of religion, not on scripture. It’s about how people variously interpret scriptures and put their interpretations into practice and how they use that interpretation to judge others. Also I VERY much believe in the power of revelation, which God still speaks to us, not only through the Bible, but more often through those around us whom we interact with (and some of you may remember the fortune cookies LOL). I have studied the Bible since early childhood and am quite familiar with the scriptures Anonymous cites as well as hundreds of others.

Theologians have been trying to understand what the scriptures mean since the earliest writings of Moses and pastors have been struggling to define relevance of words written thousands of years ago to life in modern society. What are healing miracles for 2009? Where did Jesus ascend to since our telescopes can see to the beginnings of our universe?

I also believe without the Holy Spirit of God within our souls to guide and reveal to us, the Bible is so much ink on a page. When you, Anonymous, say I should not concern myself with what others think, am I to assume that you have no use for a pastor interpreting and explaining the Bible? That you do not believe in Bible studies where people discuss what the scriptures mean to them? That personal witness (which is what I claim to be) is worthless for the glory of God? That God has had nothing else to say in the 1800+ years since the Bible was written by men?

So I’m not a big fan of throwing around Bible quotes like rocks at a public stoning. You’ve tossed out several without explaining how you interpret them, as if they are perfectly clear. I also wonder if you have considered how the early Christians fared prior to Paul’s first writings, let alone the Gospels coming along decades later.

For example, since it is a theme of your chosen scriptures, I would ask what your definition of sexual immorality is? I have no doubt it differs from mine, but I suspect it will probably differ from many fellow parishioners. There are numerous Biblical incidents I consider sexually immoral that God seemed to bless or ignore such as Solomon’s 900 wives and Abraham having sex with his concubine to name two. And for the literalists who believe in Adam and Eve, God certainly had to bless a lot of incest to get the human race off the ground.

In reference to 1 Corinthians 6:18, as a male who struggles with his weight, it seems that my eating/exercise habits have far more impact inside my body than anything sexual I have done. I can also guarantee I have never looked at a woman lustfully so we can dismiss Matthew 5:28. Regarding Hebrews 13:4, I never committed adultery with my wife during 20 years of marriage. I have and continue to honor the marriage vows I made to the best of my ability, far, far beyond what is required by any judge or law. Good Christian people have called me a fool for continuing to love, honor and cherish her both financially and emotionally.

As for Romans 1:26-27, you are obviously quoting relatively modern translations as the Bible didn’t put it that way prior to the 1940s. As for Romans 13:13, I am quite in the open about as much of my behavior I feel is proper, certainly as much as the average person. While like most I certainly won’t have sex in public, I will unabashedly give my partner a hug or kiss as well as hold his hand in public.

And if you consider me to lack humility, I suggest you read more of my posts. If I still come across as someone lacking humility who doesn’t defer to God (though not necessarily the Bible), let me know. And speaking of humility, you obviously don’t understand what homosexuality is all about and I recommend getting to really know us and truly learn to love us before you condemn us to hell. Do you really believe it is sinful lust that drives me into the arms of another man? That it’s simply a matter of choosing to live as a heterosexual (been there, done that, didn’t work)? Or simply to deny ourselves the very necessary human intimacy that is essential for our mental and emotional well-being?

The part of your writing that offends me most, though, is when you say I consider myself God. Boy that would sure make my life easier and eliminate the need for me to bother writing this. I have many friends who have turned their backs on God because there was no tolerance for them in their church. Part of the work I am called by God to do is to reach out to those hurt by their church and offer hope and a vision of God as loving and worthy to be worshipped. It is extremely difficult akin to helping a badly wounded animal. They hear words from people like you, Anonymous, and there is nothing but loneliness and despair in them. Do you have any idea how hurtful this is? Is there a bit of compassion in your heart?

I assure you, Anonymous, that simply because I interpret scripture different, that my understanding of God is different, that I am open to discuss my doubts and my faith struggle, I have never claimed to usurp God. I have never claimed to know God’s will other than what he has revealed to me about my own life. That I challenge those certainties others have about what God does or does not actually ‘hate’ does not make me God.

By the way I do have scriptures to back up my beliefs. From the following foremost scripture comes my reconciliation with God who created me just the way I am as his gay son and with others in this world who I have to have the courage to live with. It drives my faith journey, my understanding of God worthy to be loved, my thoughts, my actions, my writing, my life, my compassion and my love. Upon it do I weigh and measure everything written, spoken or revealed.

Luke 12:30-31

30Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.'[f] 31The second is this: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.'[g]There is no commandment greater than these."

Ponderings

2009-09-29T09:50:00.000-07:00

From childhood I have studied religion and not just Christianity. To various degrees I have studied the various protestant denominations (fundamentalism to progressive), Catholicism, Mormonism, Buddhism, Islam, Judaism and others including a bit of Zoroastrianism (the first monotheistic religion). I am admittedly an amateur on theology, but I don't think you need to be a theologian or pastor, elder, priest, shaman, etc. to work out ones faith. I try to share some of my insights as well as questions here.

Today I have a few random observations and rhetorical questions based on various faiths' claims. These are intended to provoke thoughts, not necessarily an argument. Explanations are welcome as I am very interested in how people rationalize these apparent inconsistencies.

1) If, as some evangelicals claim, God is willing to send disasters to punish society (the good with the bad) to convince the non-believers of his divine will, why does he seem to be unwilling to take much less drastic, more personal action? Perhaps blowing down just the sinner's houses?

2) God punishing the masses for the sins of the few makes him seem capricious, extremely sadistic as well as vengeful. This doesn't coincide with the message of grace and forgiveness I am udes to.

3) There seems an underlying theme from many televangelists... For the faithful, good fortune is God's blessing and bad fortune is a trial. For the unfaithful, good fortune is God showing grace even to the wicked and bad fortune in punishment.

4) If God is going to eventually dispense divine judgement and retribution, why should we as humans waste energy being punitive to those God has already damned?

5) Biblical inerrancy requires an amazing amout of intervention by God. Just as literal creationism requires an inconceivable amount of detail work (such as not just creating the stars but creating lightwaves from those distant stars moving through space on a path to our eyes). Yet we are to believe that this micromanagement God really doesn't care that much about us as individuals even though the Bible says he does.

I've read some of the Koran lately, randomly picking several dozen passages and a couple of observations came to me.

1) The Jews are really reviled in the Koran. But I can't figure out is they are mad at Jews for not following Mohammed or for not sharing God in the first place.

2) Based on my random sampling, I didn't have to read very far each and every passage before there was a reference to hell or judgement.

So here are but a few of the ponderments that go though my mind at times. Again, if someone can explain any of these in a logical way, I welcome the dialog.

Some Thoughts Around Abortion

2009-09-28T10:01:00.000-07:00

Dangerous topic - abortion. First off, I realize that as a male, my opinion is of secondary importance. Second, I am pro-choice in that it's not the government's responsibility to dictate reproductive decisions for anyone.

I also do not support legislation based on religion or morality. I do not accept that an embryo is a person nor is a non-viable fetus. Other than that I don't know, but defer to the people actually involved in the pregnancy.

I prefer we not have abortions, but choose not to criminalize what is already a tough decision. I think the best way to minimize abortions is through truthful sex education, strong promotion of contraceptives including the "morning after" pill and a supportive, non-judgemental attitude toward all women. Stygmatizing women through guilt and fear essentially instills only guilt, rarely motivation.

And where are all the anti-abortionists when it comes to paying for pre-natal care and welcoming and supporting the new mother and child into the community with celebration and open arms. No, it seems to be heaps of scorn no matter what decisions a woman makes.

How do they rationalize that all good things are from God and all bad things are brought upon by the individual? What kind of weak, vengeful, arbitrary monster is the god they portray?

While I do believe from personal experience that God (the nuturing one I believe in) can involve himself in the creation or lack of creation of children (I just have to look at the contortions of coincidence that brought my son into the world), I refuse to leave it totally in his hands. Neither do I let him completely control my car.

I find it frustrating in that many abortion opponents are anti-contraception, against teaching kids the facts about sex in schools, are anti-women's rights, and want to label girls as pure or whores. Many refuse to acknowledge that sex outside of marriage not only exists but can be a blessed thing.

I wondered what would happen if they did manage to reverse Roe v Wade - if they were able to turn back the clock to a time where abortions in many places were illegal. Of course the wealthy would still get safe abortions like they always have. The Republicans would lose a plank in their platform that has produced votes for them. The poor would create larger populations of poverty and die more often.

But I'm sure that's "acceptible" as due punishment for their sins. Society as a whole has to put up with more crime and poverty.

I think more about the children born to mothers who do not want them, to live without a loving and nuturing parent. I think about the women who struggle as they might, cannot support their families, I think of the women put to death by the law whether through unlicensed practitioners or the inaction of doctors to sacrifice a fetus to save a mother. What a cruel insensitive world that would be.

Perhaps their god who cannot stop a woman from having an abortion will bring down a hurricane on everyone for our unwillingness to usurp women's right to make their own decisions. And while he's at it, maybe send another one to North Korean.

National Dialog

2009-09-18T12:30:00.000-07:00

We must change our national dialog from saying "you must, should, will" to saying "I think, believe, hope."

Where I Am Today

2009-09-18T09:18:00.000-07:00

It's been a long time since I published anything here. Mainly life has been fairly hectic for the past six months. Work has been especially busy, but is finally giving me personal time back. My relationship with Eugene is still good - 3 1/2 years. While it is still long distance and may never change, it's what I need at this time. We did get to spend a week vacation together and enjoy some romantic time.

But while I haven't written, I have done a lot of thinking. American society is going through massive changes, the pace of which is increasing. Sadly the ability to discourse is falling. I had hoped that Obama's administration might usher in more pragmatism, but wasn't expecting the "just say no" position the opposition is taking.

The refusal to change anything is what has lead to economic meltdown and the healthcare crisis. To desire to maintain the status quo is no fix. I see tea-baggers protesting (what exactly many are not sure). I read about the rise in extremist groups in the U.S. I hear about disturbing trends in the rollback of female rights at the state level. And of course I cringe at the desire of so many to deny basic rights to gay people - that rights are something given by popular vote. I worry about the massive ongoing transfer of wealth from the middle and lower incomes of society into the small group of wealthy elitists. I am troubled by the near panicked efforts to maintain tradional sexual models - men are in charge and powerful or wimps / women are virgins, married or whores.

When I try to step back and look wholistically it just seems that so many people want to turn back the clock. Perhaps it is a longing for a simpler time, a time they felt more secure. But I don't really think it was all that simple, but merely a time when the things that scare them were hidden.

Now I'm not threatened by a difference of opinion or belief. What disturbs me is the rabid way some groups demand people conform to their narrowly defined lifestyle. When laws are being passed to purposely marginalize certain groups of people, I am outraged. When people tell blatant lies to sway public opinion, I am incensed. When people cannot respect a difference of opinion, I feel less secure about the direction and standing of our society. When people use fear to manipulate others, I find it offensive.

We all have to live our lives the best we can. More people than anyone knows do not fit the stereotyped American lifestyle with a man and a woman, married with 2.5 children living in a nice suburban neighborhood with a good job and going to church on Sunday. It takes so much courage and stamina to pull out of that strong orbit we are raised by society to find attractive. But everyone who manages it weakens the bonds that bind the rest.

I am trying to change my corner of the world, though. I try to speak up when I see injustice. I ask for facts when I hear knee-jerk solutions. I try to be who I am and stand up for my values. I do not tell people how to live their lives, but I do want to challenge everyone, myself included, to think about why they believe what they do, why they act like they do. And most of all, I wish everyone would practice understanding and compassion.

Sexual Sin

2009-01-26T12:24:00.001-08:00

One of the biggest hangups for the church for the past 2000 years has been sex. Even secular society's ideas about sex have been permanently defined by religious history. We have so screwed up our thought processes that we cannot rationally discuss the subject within the church and with our own children.

Yet it is a basic biological function while at the same time being a gift from God, perhaps one of his greatest gifts. Yet it comes with much confusion, complexity and manipulation.

First, I don't have all the answers; I probably even have more questions than most.

Second, I don't believe there is as simple a definition for sexual sin (or any sin for that matter) as many profess. Even Bible literalists don't always agree. Some say sex is only available for those who are married while some add the requirement that it must be for procreation and others even would remove any enjoyment of the act from the realm of holy sex.

Somewhere deep in our collective psyche we even have this concept that all sex is bad, a tool of the devil and only barely acceptable when used for procreation. We are not even allowed to lust in our minds. Some believe that children are born from a particularly offensive sinful act for which immediate baptism is the only antidote. Jesus and Paul advocated complete celibacy as a pathway to the ultimate relationship with God, though acknowledging that it's hardly appropriate for everyone.

On the other hand, we have people who believe that pre-marital sex is ok, that extra-marital sex is ok, that same sex activity is ok and that multiple partners is ok. There are many ideas as to what level of sexual activity God condones and many will tell us the others are wrong and condemned.

When it comes to gays, conservatives have built a wonderful catch-22. Sex is not permitted outside of marriage. Gays are not allowed to marry. Therefore if you want to experience this wonderful gift of God's you have to conform to their idea of what is proper. Just be celibate because while God loves you, he abhors that you might find some joy and companionship in your life. Nice.

There seems to be this redefining of Jesus's words that a man shall leave his parents and marry a woman as an 11th commandment. The word is shall, not must.

There are several important foundational concepts that form each of our particular beliefs. Obviously being gay affects my ideas, which offends more people than pre-marital sex it seems. I don't recall the Supreme court ever having to legalize pre-marital sex.

The first foundational idea is that sexuality is a great gift from God. It is one of his primary means of bringing couples together to begin with and of deepening their love and sense of one-ness. One writer described it as nothing less than a foretaste of our union with God in the hereafter.

Sexuality is in my opinion one of the best gifts we have been given. Unlike most animals, sex for humans is not restricted to fertility periods, is most enjoyable, can be misused, can bring us into closer communion with one we love or be the source of much mental anguish.

One almost has to wonder why God gave us such a complex and hugely powerful gift with only the barest of guide on how to use it. It's understandable why people have put so many restrictions on it. We have more social constraints of sex than we any society has ever placed on guns. Yet the most intimate of acts can be harmful, even deadly.

God didn't give us jealousy, STDs and sexual violence to punish us for having sex. He gave us sex knowing the dangers because what we learn from it can far outweigh it's dangers. Just like we don't consider death in an accident a punishment for our children carelessly driving the car we gave them.

Through their restrictive ideas about this one complex gift, many churches have alienated countless numbers of people. More so, these conservative attitudes have created a mystique that is abused by our society to sell products and entertainments. Sex sells.

With a zero tolerance attitude toward sex, dialog is closed. Members of churches are excommunicated. Gossip reigns. People are left with nothing to guide them. They are written off and told it is God's will.

The second foundational element that pertains is one's concept of sin. As I've said before, the definition given to me is that sin is anything in our lives that separates us from God. It's a fairly simple concept really. What aspects of our lives do we proudly show to God? Which ones would we prefer to hide? For it is in the hiding that we miss out on God's grace and love.

Sin is an extremely personal thing and there are really few one-size-fits-all sins. Thou shalt not kill has many meanings. For the conscientious objector, for the soldier, for me. Is stealing wrong if you are feeding your family? Is lying wrong if we build up someone's self-confidence? God even blessed Abraham's adultery and forgave David's.

For my father, alcohol is a sin, yet that is not a standard he implies all should live by. Even my mother is exempt from his standard for himself. For some religions, dancing, movies, even the showing of a female ankle are sins.

Rather than worry about some list where we are measured and require others to live up to, we should worry about the things that obsess us more than God. It's a form of idolatry. And in today's modern society there are many and hidden ways to have god's before God. For some it is wealth, other's power. Some even put the Bible before God worshipping it above all else. And for some, there definitely is the idol of sex, either in their obsession with getting it, their tearing down of those they feel are living in sin or their obsession with denying sex to others.

Now I'll tell you my ideas on sex and sin today, the 26th of January in 2009. Obviously I don't think gay people having sex is inherently sinful. I also don't belief that sex in a marriage for procreation is automatically sinless.

Yes, it's relativism. I freely admit it. And anyone who says they aren't relativistic is deluding themselves. Read the Bible objectively and none of us comes out unscathed. There's not one Christian who doesn't rationalize something that doesn't fit their life. And we are so good at not seeing it that we assume the relativism doesn't exist. We keep so busy pointing out other people's violations that we fail to see our own.

Be still and know. Listen to that still small voice. God doesn't need to boom from a pulpit. God didn't even need to write a book. We humans needed that because we are so poor at listening to the quiet voice.

So back to sex. What is my standard? Where do I draw the line? I think sex should be in the context of a loving relationship. It should be an act of love. It should be something we can lift up to God and celebrate with him. And to me love is what lifts up both people. Sex that demeans another, sex that is selfish - for me that's where sin lies.

Yes it a standard that fits my life. And I, like others use it as a yardstick to judge others which is wrong.

All I can say is it is the yardstick that God and I have come to terms with just as valid as celibacy is for the devoted priest. Hardly universal, though I think it's a good one in today's world.

Have I violated my yardstick. Yes. And not necessarily in the ways you might think. I was physically faithful to my wife during our marriage and even during our separation. Yet that yardstick imposed by others was violated by the lust in my heart. But God kept me safe by making sure I was in a relationship where I was deeply loved until I could learn to love myself. I seriously doubt I would be here today if he hadn't watched out for me. I did not love myself in my youth and that is the most dangerous place to be, especially with the power of my sexual awakening. I know I would have looked for love in all the wrong places as many do.

So sex to me is an aspect of love, the ultimate sharing between two people. But it's not just the love of and for another than makes sex a holy thing. It requires a healthy love of myself.

A Commentary on Comments

2009-01-26T07:37:00.000-08:00

I've received several comments recently and I appreciate them. I'm glad my thoughts and my witness is reaching others even when they don't agree.

I'm not sure what Internet magic causes many posts to hit the poem I wrote 3 years ago. I'd like to think it has some emotional impact. But it could be the randomness of the 1's and 0's floating around on servers. Or could it be something more divine?

God and I have what I consider an unconventional relationship. He is the big brother I longed to have, the mentor I lacked, the most dear friend I needed, even the loving parent to fill in the gaps from my family.

He knows my quirky humor and willingness to consider radical ideas. He knows I find him in so many ways. I think he is amused hiding messages around my life and delights in my joy at finding them whether they be in a fortune cookie, a quiet forest, a book I chanced upon or a comment from out of the blue.

Before I met my boyfriend, I asked God to bring me someone exactly like him (I am amazed at how closely he matches the description I gave to God). I also experienced back then a time of desperation also around when I wrote that poem. I wasn't meeting anyone I was interested in romantically. I was extremely anxious.

Suddenly for about 6 weeks I began receiving countless messages about patience. They came in sermons, and scripture but more importantly for me, they came in fortune cookies and other unconventional sources. I know those unconventional words were from God not only because it was what I needed at the time and it was blatantly obvious, but also because I have never received another fortune cookie about patience since that episode 3 years ago.

Six months later, Eugene came into my life and we have been together for nearly 3 years.

But to return to the topic of post comments. I received one recently (I hope the person learns that ALL CAPS ONLINE MEANS SHOUTING) that, along with others, has brought me back to concepts of sin.

First, this commenter was like a former co-worker. That co-worker wanted to compare being gay with being an alcoholic - something that someone is predisposed to - and I finally had to tell him point-blank not to go there. The only thing you can compare homosexuality to is heterosexuality.

This later commenter compared being gay to stealing. Well, obviously this person, like my coworker, has no concept of what being gay is really all about. Being gay is a core element of my soul. It is not an aspect of me, it is the basic foundation of who I am, just as being a male is. Thinking of merely being gay as wrong is like thinking that being male is inherently wrong. People don't choose it, they discover it, then they hopefully accept it.

Some say that homosexual behavior is what is sinful and that we should abhor it. I obviously don't believe that, but I'll leave that to another entry I plan to soon write.

As another commenter aptly stated, "I was knit perfect in the womb for the purpose He wants for me." That is indeed truth and is something that I have learned so well. A Christian friend once told me it's good to carry one's cross, just make sure it's really your cross.

Some eight years ago I did discover the cross I was bravely bearing was not mine at all but one society, family and church had subtly given me. So I dropped it and picked up the one God intended for me and knew I was finally ready to carry. I learned what was meant by "My yoke is easy and my burden is light." It's much easier to bear the cross God gave me, the honest open life proud of God's work, than the one-size-fits-all version society wants to give me. I learned that if it feels like an unreasonable burden, we need to make sure it's really from God.

And they still want to give me that phony cross. They want me to live my life by their definition of what sin is, of what God wants, of what convoluted lifestyle meets their interpretation of the Bible and of their interpretation of God's judgement.

Well, I've been there and done that and almost died spiritually and physically from their burden. God doesn't ask us to do more than we can handle. But fellow Christians will gladly heap burdens upon us far beyond what God asks. They will live with their cozy family, make love to their spouse, share the toils and intimacy of marriage and the security of knowing that someone will care for them and pick them up when they fall. They will proclaim how indispensable their spouse is and without qualm deny me and other gays of the same necessities of life.

So for those trying to convince me that gay sexuality is universally sinful, save your breath. I have it from a higher authority which has guided me through the valley of death, that closeted existence where my soul was lost while my body performed the sacraments.

Yes, I was once considered an exemplary model of upstanding Christian. Now some of the same people condemn me to damnation. But I know and God knows where my soul really was and is. I learned the painful lesson that the rules of humans are not the rules of God. He asks us to be different, and not just different from the worldly person, but different from the Pharisees and Sadducee's of our day.

God has held my hand my entire life. He has sheltered me and given me patience. He has given me courage and strength and endurance. And he has given me a beautiful companion with whom I can share the intimacy and oneness that many would deny me.

For those who disagree with me, I pray for the vision and the enlightenment that God may reveal. For those that find solace here, I pray for the courage, peace, generosity and love God has given to me. May all find comfort in his loving embrace.

Bishop Gene Robinson's Inauguration Prayer

2009-01-20T08:57:00.000-08:00

O God of our many understandings, we pray that you will…

Bless us with tears – for a world in which over a billion people exist on less than a dollar a day, where young women from many lands are beaten and raped for wanting an education, and thousands die daily from malnutrition, malaria, and AIDS.

Bless us with anger – at discrimination, at home and abroad, against refugees and immigrants, women, people of color, gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people.

Bless us with discomfort – at the easy, simplistic "answers" we've preferred to hear from our politicians, instead of the truth, about ourselves and the world, which we need to face if we are going to rise to the challenges of the future.

Bless us with patience – and the knowledge that none of what ails us will be "fixed" anytime soon, and the understanding that our new president is a human being, not a messiah.

Bless us with humility – open to understanding that our own needs must always be balanced with those of the world.

Bless us with freedom from mere tolerance – replacing it with a genuine respect and warm embrace of our differences, and an understanding that in our diversity, we are stronger.

Bless us with compassion and generosity – remembering that every religion's God judges us by the way we care for the most vulnerable in the human community, whether across town or across the world.

And God, we give you thanks for your child Barack, as he assumes the office of President of the United States.

Give him wisdom beyond his years, and inspire him with Lincoln's reconciling leadership style, President Kennedy's ability to enlist our best efforts, and Dr. King’s dream of a nation for ALL the people.

Give him a quiet heart, for our Ship of State needs a steady, calm captain in these times.

Give him stirring words, for we will need to be inspired and motivated to make the personal and common sacrifices necessary to facing the challenges ahead.

Make him color-blind, reminding him of his own words that under his leadership, there will be neither red nor blue states, but the United States.

Help him remember his own oppression as a minority, drawing on that experience of discrimination, that he might seek to change the lives of those who are still its victims.

Give him the strength to find family time and privacy, and help him remember that even though he is president, a father only gets one shot at his daughters’ childhoods.

And please, God, keep him safe. We know we ask too much of our presidents, and we’re asking FAR too much of this one. We know the risk he and his wife are taking for all of us, and we implore you, O good and great God, to keep him safe. Hold him in the palm of your hand – that he might do the work we have called him to do, that he might find joy in this impossible calling, and that in the end, he might lead us as a nation to a place of integrity, prosperity and peace.

AMEN.

Religious Obsession with Sex

2009-01-13T07:46:00.000-08:00

I have started reading the book "Rumors of a Another World" by Philip Yancey. While I have not read enough to wholly endorse Yancey's viewpoint, many of the things he talks about ring true. His thesis is that the world around us and its pleasures are truly gifts from God and hints at the paradise to come. Like a ring between lovers, it is a symbol of His love for us and something we are meant to treasure and enjoy, but not idolize. Desires in their proper context are normal and holy.

Yet some religious people would have us completely deny pleasure and our desires. I contend, like the author seems to, that neither extreme is desirable. I don't approve of pure hedonism nor do I believe in complete denial of pleasure including when it comes to sex, the biggest thorn in religion's side for centuries.

Isn't it a bit perverted to be so obsessed with what goes on in people's bedrooms and at the same time so ashamed of God's gift of sexuality that we cannot discuss it openly and honestly with our children? Isn't it odd that many would drive people away from God because of sex while welcoming the greedy and the liars and the hateful with open arms?

I think much of religion is abnormally focused on sexuality and ignores so many other faucets of human behavior that is much more damaging in my mind. Yancey says it well in his book...

I dwell on the church's severe attitude toward sex because I believe we
Christians bear heavy responsibility for the counter-reaction so evident in
modern society. Jesus treated those who had fallen into sexual sins with
compassion and forgiveness and reserved his harshest words for the hidden
sins of hypocrisy, pride, greed and legalism. How is it that we who follow
him use the word "immoral" to signify sexual sins almost exclusively and
reserve church discipline for those who fail sexually.

And this struggle with sexuality consumes churches, robbing their energies and creating an environment so cruel and unsympathetic that the vast majority of this country sees no relevance of religion in their lives. All church work fighting poverty and disease is cast in shadow by the walls built to keep out the sexually "impure."

Meanwhile greed, pride and legalism have destroyed the world's economy and thousands of families with nary a word from religious "authorities". Sexuality has become the defining factor of many churches and religious organizations.

Name the group American Family Association and most people will think of Dobson's crusade against homosexuals. Jerry Falwell will always be remembered for saying that gays contributed to 9/11. Say the name Fred Phelps and most visualize his "God Hates Fags" signs. Talk about the Episcopal church and the number one topic is the divide over gay people.

This crusade against sexuality is fronted by a fatwa on gays. Their decrees that marriage and sex are only for procreation, that abstinence until marriage is the only way to educate youth, that birth control is evil, that God insists gays must be celibate would be laughable if not for the seriousness of their consequences.

One of the hypocrisies that hurts me most is represented by the words of Rick Warren who stated he could not imagine not having the intimacy of his relationship with his wife. He spoke as if it were something deeply and foundationally important in his life, and I truly believe it is. He said he cannot imagine not having it and having to live in the desolation its absence would cause.

Yet, Pastor Warren, like many others, sees no hypocrisy in wanting to deny to gay people the very intimacy they proclaim as indispensable in their own lives.

I was married for 20 years and while I loved and cherished my wife, and I still do, there was no true intimacy in our relationship. The deceit was destroying us both. Now our souls are healing and God has given me some of the glorious intimacy Pastor Warren thinks is indispensable. God has led me to welcoming Christians who focus on Christs love instead of Gos' wrathful judgement. And as a result I have learned about what love really is and how to love God truly.

If we truly love and nurture the person, if we accept them unconditionally as God accepts them, if we are welcoming and inclusive in our churches and our lives, then we open the door for God to worry about the sins. Let us show the world the God's wedding ring - His marvelous creation.

Why?

2009-01-07T07:42:00.000-08:00

I was relieved that a recent study on Prop 8 indicated that race was essentially a non-factor in it's passage which debunks earlier studies. The main factors were age, church attendance and party affiliation. What skewed appearances is that African-Americans tend to be more church going.

But what it does indicate is that knowing LGBT people and experiencing discrimination is trumped by proclaimed religious beliefs.

The question then is how do people acquire their religious beliefs. It starts from parents and ministers and church teachers. For many that's where it stops. Few people bother to study the Bible themselves, to meditate on scripture, to seek inspiration. People who believe the Bible strongly supports the one man one woman version of marriage are not very familiar with the Bible.

Anyone who has performed a marriage ceremony knows that the Bible is slim pickings when it comes to marriage liturgy. Anyone who's attended a few marriage ceremonies will soon find the scripture reading familiar. To me it's always seemed a stretch to assume that Jesus's attendance at a wedding feast was the same as blessing marriage. Did his supper with a tax collector bless tax collecting?

The bottom line is that we really choose our religious beliefs. Many people are comfortable with a basic understanding because it doesn't conflict with their other beliefs and life. For the many who choose to dig deeper, the ground quickly becomes less firm. Dogma quickly starts to crumble and requires increasing convoluted rationalization to support it.

But we all find a belief system that suits us. It's erroneous to claim that what suits us is universal or even God's ultimate truth. What we believe is our truth. To claim it equals divine truth elevates us to God's domain. Our truth changes as God works in our lives, as we grow and mature in our faith.

We believe what we want to believe. Belief filters our vision. Scotomas block out the things that make us uncomfortable. Of course the Bible supports our belief because our beliefs don't let conflicting things in. The only way to increase our awareness of truth is to suspend our will and beliefs and let God speak to us. That's why I ask myself constantly - why do I believe this?

Is this from God? Is it from a respected source? Does this contribute to oppression or to peace? How does it conflict with my other beliefs?

Is it loving?

That's the question I challenge others with. Why do you believe the things you do? Why do you practice the sacraments you do? Why do you preach and prophesy the way you do?

The Bible can say what we want it to mean. It can also be simple text on a page simply meaning what the words say. But when we are quiet, God uses the Bible to speak to us. This multiple meaning though means the Bible in and of itself is a poor teacher. Our use of scriptures is a reflection of our beliefs and only rarely God's truth.

Humans are poor vessels for God's truth. Our understanding is so limited. Our seeing is so influenced by our pre-concieved thoughts. We have ears but do not hear. We have eyes but do not see. We have hearts but do not love.

This is why the Bible makes a poor authority figure. Anyone can quote the Bible. But the real Good News comes from our hearts, from love and compassion, from hope and peace.

When someone quotes scripture to me and doesn't speak from their heart, it has less meaning than someone who witnesses from their personal relationship with God.

That's what I try to do here, to witness my own faith journey, my struggles and inspirations, and my personal and personalized relationship with God.

Rick Warren & Barack Obama

2008-12-21T07:25:00.001-08:00

Today it became clear to me why the selection of anti-gay Rick Warren by Barack Obama as invocation speaker bothered me so much. In fact it makes me want to spit nails, take names and make phone calls. It's because as much as Barack Obama proclaims that he supports us, he just doesn't get it.

He's not alone. I am constantly disappointed by supportive people who during conversations prove that they really don't get it either. They truly do not understand what it's like to be gay. But I give credit for trying, for listening, for learning.

Warren and others like him talk about all their gay friends and how loving and supportive they are to gay people. And then compare gay relationships with incest and pedophelia if not beastiality. My guess is their so called gay "friends" are not as good a friends as they would like to proclaim.

My relationship with Eugene is every bit as important as a straight couple's. To think that we are somewhat less valid because we are gay is extremely offensive. This is why recognition of gay marriage is important - because until gay relationships are valued by society, we as a group of people are 2nd class, akin to pre-teens sharing promise rings. It's cute but not a "real" adult relationship.

Add to Warren's views about gay relationships - his church denies membership to gays unless they adhere to that church's demeaning requirements. It is another offense that Warren and Obama just do not "get." I don't mind having a conservative speaker. There are many sound values and work being done by conservative Christians.

I don't mind someone being slow to understand. One can be personally opposed to gay marriage without being a hawk about it. I do mind the active and very vocal opposition Warren proclaims against gays.

That is not acceptance of a difference of opinion. That is plain bigotry against people that are different and he doesn't try to understand.

DHRB

2008-12-08T08:32:00.000-08:00

Deeply Held Religious Beliefs are often quoted when people deny GLBT people equal rights. I read of a South Carolina principle who wanted to deny a GSA group at his school due to his DHRBs. It appears the main reason Prop 8 passed was due to many people's DHRBs. People who want to overturn Roe v Wade cite DHRBs.

The Vatican is claiming its DHRBs prevent it from signing a resolution condemning the criminalization and execution of gays. What kind of religion puts you in that position?

But there's something in all of this that leaves me unsettled besides the obvious person aspect of their actions. I think it is the pain that some people's DHRBs inflict on those around them.

Today I was thinking a bit about that and I know that I have DHRBs as do many in favor of gay rights and reproductive rights. But it feels like my DHRBs are discounted while others are "respected."

I have a DHRB that I was created by God in his image. I have a DHRB that God loves me just as I am. I have a DHRB that God does not seek to deny my need for love and human intimacy. I have a DHRB that being gay is no barrier to being a Christian (or Muslim or Jew or...).

I guess the difference is how I put my beliefs into practice. First off I don't wear them on my sleeve or use them as a replacement for logic and dialog. I also recognize that my DHRBs may apply to me alone since God does have individual relationships with each of us. The idea that his relationships with the billions of earthlings are identical is naive.

Like everyone else, I use my beliefs in building my values and my actions. And there are times when I act against my beliefs because of the situation I am in.

For example, I have a DHRB that corporate profiteering to maximize stockholder value and executive compensation at the expense of employees, community and the environment is wrong or sinful as some would say.

Yet I work for a Fortune 50 company that I know at times violates my DHRBs. I have a choice of action from quitting to protest to acquiescence to speaking my mind. I will choose the latter when circumstances present themselves. I don't consider this discarding my beliefs or values because there are many many good things my company does as well and I am proud to work here. I am proud of the progress it has made and the restraint shown.

This weekend I heard of a local high school whose GSA membership was over 50 students. And reportedly most had not revealed in the meetings their orientation. The group had grown from an initial 6.

GSAs are not about sex. They are about support and not feeling alone in school. They are about helping each student acheive their potential.

I spend my high school years trying to be invisible and thinking I was the only gay kid out of 3000 students. My social life was stunted. My relationships were few and shallow. My dating life was totally screwed up as I did what I was supposed to do not what I wanted.

Today I am much more outgoing and confident with a great support community. I will always wonder what life would have been like if I had had that in high school.

It makes me angry to think that there are kids like me in schools today denied that support I needed to bloom because of their principle's deeply held religious beliefs. How much hurt does one have to inflict on fellow human beings to begin to question one's actions based on beliefs?

Loving the Sinner

2008-12-03T07:20:00.000-08:00

I understand the phylosophy in hating the sin but loving the sinner, however when I see it in practice by those that proclaim that's what they are doing, it appears flat and shallow. They seem to spend so much time hating sin they can't even begin to know how to love a sinner.

As you already know, I don't believe that homosexuality is a sin or that same sex sex is a sin. now before some of you send me reminders of scripture, save your fingers. I don't believe and never will that the scriptures mean what you think they do.

However, I am always amazed by the level of inhumanity that religion will demonstrate when it comes to gays. I have copied this as the latest offense from the Catholic Church.

The Catholic Church, a body that has been staunchly opposed to the death
penalty does not want to include international protections by the United Nations
for gay people who face death penalty charges in countries where homosexuality
is illegal. The Vatican is voicing opposition and plan to go against the French
proposal that is introducing this piece of human rights resolution.
"This week the Vatican's permanent observer to the United Nations, said the Holy See would oppose a resolution that would protect gays from being killed, just because they are gay because it would "add new categories of those protected from discrimination" and could lead to reverse discrimination against traditional heterosexual marriage.
"The French resolution, which is supported by all 27 members of the European Union, says absolutely nothing about gay marriage; it is about ending jail and death penalty sentences gays yet face in more than 85 countries including Afghanistan, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Sudan and Yemen where you can still be killed for being gay."

The lack of basic compassion by the leaders of one of the largest religious organizations in the world is stunning. As it says in 1 Corinthians 13:1...

If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal.

Where is the love in the Vatican's position?

And can anybody explain how gay marriage will destroy straight marriage? I've yet to hear anyone explain anything but fearmongering. By now there should be plenty of examples in Massachusetts and Canada and the UK if it were. I'm sure the AFA web site would be chock full of examples of straight marriages destroyed by Ellen and Elton.

But to claim in the name of God that gay people aren't worthy of the basic respect for life is just horrible.

Cruelty

2008-11-22T05:23:00.000-08:00

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?

Root

2008-11-13T12:11:00.000-08:00

I often wonder what is at the root of the animosity conservatives have toward LGBT people. The energy and emotion given in fighting us seems unwarranted when justified by a handful of scriptures. There are many more scriptures on other themes that get short shrift by churches - lying and greed being a couple.

Plus I look at Christ's life and he never spoke one word of condemnation of gay people. Why not, if it were as important an issue as some churches make it out to be. And while I believe he might have spoken in support of gays, I acknowlege it could be a stretch.

All that we really can be sure of is that Christ was neutral on the issue as far as scripture was concerned. Yet from this neutrality comes vehement objection today. And I do not understand why.

Why are people so angry? That growing up with the desire for intimacy and love for a man instead of for a woman should generate such ire and judgement seems disproportionate.

They will say they want to save my soul. But they don't care if I'm violent or an adulterer or a theif or opportunist preying on the innocent. They show no desire to save my soul from those things. It's just so important to them to get me to change from being gay. Then their work is done. How odd. How myopic.

And these same people who profess such concern for my soul, seem to show great apathy for other heathens. They seem perfectly fine consigning billions of non-Christians to eternal damnation. I guess I should feel grateful that they have so much concern for me over the Hindu's. Or the Unitarians.

Some will cite the decadent behavior they see at gay bars and Pride festivals. And yes there are exuberant gays who perhaps push things a bit far in venues where they are among kindred spirits. But tell me one time anyone saw gogo boys at the mall. Tell me when anyone saw the gays at work prancing around with boas. Plus the vast majority of gays wouldn't be caught dead in their skivvies marching down North Halsted.

For some it's the fear that some gay person will hit on them. First they should consider it a compliment because if a gay guy finds them attractive, a straight woman definitely will. All they have to do is say "thanks, but no thanks." The idea that it is a cause for violence is horrid. Image the reaction to a woman who killed a man in his apartment simply because he came on to her at a bar. Imagine worrying that that might happen to you.

Perhaps it's because gays must all be succumbing to temptation. How wonderfully righteous that straight people resist that powerful temptation to have sex with someone of their own sex. Now I do know of many 'straight' guys that just want to have a gay guy perform oral sex on them since their wives won't. But that's a whole different temptation.

And when it comes to temptation, no one does it as well as the straights. TV is crammed full of temptation. Magazines and even children's school and social lives are full of it. In my city there are no gay strip clubs, but 4 straight ones. There's one gay dance club yet countless straight ones where things go on that make even me blush. There's far more temptation to be straight than to be gay.

Perhaps it's because I interpret scripture differently. Yet so do the Mormons, the Jews and even the Presbyterians. I don't see as much chastisement rained upon them as I have received.

Oh, yes, I forgot, it's all about protecting the children. The little girl in the commercial who learned she could marry a princess - the rest of the story is that she wouldn't dream that past puberty unless she were lesbian. Staright people don't need to be indoctrinated into hetero marriage - though society spends a lot of time subliminally coaching children on their roles as a boy or girl. The reality is they don't have to be taught it to dream it. As a child in the 60's, I definitely wanted to live happily ever after with the prince (or Batman). But I also knew before I was ten that people wouldn't approve.

Kids are what they are. Some are gay and most are straight. They definitely learn what they are and about gays regardless of schools and parents. Some just go through a lot more pain and suffering while learning to accept themselves. And sadly way too many destroy themselves in the process.

Of course the conservatives reject the idea that gay people are born that way. That would violate their assumptions about God's judgement. That might mean they are - (gasp) wrong. (Note: I have no problem accepting that I might be wrong as it happens so often.) So in their minds, children must be "recruited." I recall an activist I knew saying that if someone gave him $10,000 to recruit straight children to being gay, he wouldn't have a clue what to do. Perhaps giving every boy a Barbie and an Easy-bake Oven would do it (this is a joke).

Yet, conservatives mistake our concern for the children who are growing up like we did, thinking they were flawed and second-class members of society. We all wished for role models, to know we were not alone. I can only envy teens today who can actually date the people they want to date rather than the ones they're "supposed" to. I imagine the joy the straight guys had dating girls. And I feel severely deprived that I could not have that experience for myself until I was 44 years old.

I don't want another gay boy to have to experience the isolation, the supressed emotions, the undermining of his self-esteem that I lived through, that have scarred me for life. I don't want another young couple hurt because one of them really doesn't belong in that relationship. I don't want anyone thinking they have to chose between God and their sexuality.

I, like most LGBT people, just want who I date, love and marry to be a non-issue in society.

So why is it a big deal?

Protests

2008-11-13T11:52:00.000-08:00

I'm glad that people are protesting the passage of Prop 8 not only in California, but across the nation. I think this issue has helped galvanize the LGBT and allies community. Nothing gives a group backbone and resolve more than an affront or an attack.

That said, I'm not really in agreement for continued protests in front of Mormon churches. Sure the Mormon church is culpable. But they are not alone. The Mormons, probably had less involvement in Florida and Arkansas.

There are plenty of people out there who need enlightening. Another Epicopal diocese realigned itself with conservatives primary over gay issues. We gays need to focus efforts more on changing hearts. Much has happened in my lifetime especially when AIDS forced us collectively out of the closet (and ironically to realize it was a great thing to be in the open). Many people have quit fearing us. And almost half of California voters supported us for full inclusion in society.
That is a plus we can continue to build upon. Peaceful protests are a good way to remind people that we are here, that there are a lots of us, that our issues matter. All the same, we should focus on the public spaces.

Keith Olbermann on Gay Marriage

2008-11-10T20:11:00.001-08:00

Keith Olbermann's powerful commentary on Prop 8. Thank you very much, Keith.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cVUecPhQPqY

Marriage

2008-11-10T12:08:00.000-08:00

Election Day was a day of mixed feelings for me and many of my friends. It brought news that Barack Obama would replace G W Bush. And while George the II's rule is over, Obama brings with him the hope for a government that respects people.

But also came news of the passage of Prop 8 in California along with other anti-gay legislation in other states. The proponents claim the people have spoken. But typically recognizing people's rights is not something the majority has done very well.

No majority voted on the Emancipation Proclamation. No majority voted to end segregation. No majority ended interracial marriage laws. The majority does a poor job of recognizing the rights of minorities. No majority decides what a religion is. No majority decided Britany Spears could marry.

And yet people think it's perfectly ok to vote on gay rights.

They couch it in terms of defining marriage, protecting traditional marriage. But most see it for what it really is, denial of recognition of the families gay people create. A denial of gay rights.

Now I'm confident that people will eventually do what is right, though it will probably take the passing of this generation.

But it is painful to hear what the anti-gay people say. They belittle marriage saying it is purely for procreation. They bring children out as shields to their words. They blantantly lie, use deceitful words and twist facts. They manipulate people through fear.

I will probably hear about Biblical marriage (by people who might want to really do their research first) and how God created Adam and Eve. To those that think that way, I hope they overcome their fear some day. In the meantime we gays will live within the whim of the majority.

But this I do know. No law or amendment is stopping gays from marrying in the eyes of God, their friends and their families. Much as people want to make this about religion, it's about law.

All because it is more important for some people to be right than to do right.

Thou Shalt Not Interpret

2008-11-10T09:57:00.001-08:00

I am often accused of eisegesis, of putting my personal spin on scripture. I'm sure it seems that way to those who disagree with me just as it seems to me that they are as well. Most people struggle with scriptures that challenge their comfort zone. In fact many well respected people have been accused of it. Jews accuse Christians of eisegesis. Catholics accuse Protestants. Liberal and conservative protestants blame each other.

For myself, I try to let God be my guide through my interaction with Him. I constantly question my interpretation of all scriptures to try to ensure that neither my nor anyone else's personal interpretations color my reading. But we are all only human. To not interpret means the words are just dead ink on a page.

Most have had the experience where a well known scripture takes on new meaning depending on the situation of our lives. To me this is the proof that God interacts personally.

We all have the opportunity to interpet based on improved knowledge, science and sociology. When Ezekial saw the wheel, no doubt modern science would have helped him describe it more accurately.

I have read the Bible from an early age and am quite familiar with the gay "clobber" passages. They were part of the influence that kept me in denial for 40 years. That and my mother's number one rule - don't embarrass your father.

But God told me loud and clear that he loves me and is proud of who I am and that he created me this way for a purpose. He has freed me from the shadow that was destroying me and hurting those I loved. He put a stop to the lies I spoke constantly. And while He blessed me when I was in the closet, He has blessed me more in this new life. He has kept me clear of many temptations, saved me from many dangers and brought supportive friends into my life. He has even brought the man I love to me.

I would have to be a stubborn fool to ignore His words. He spoke clearly and His truth has set me free of oppression. Some who disagree will tell me I'm delusional and every time I go and meditate on it.

So now when it comes to scripture, I can only interpret them based on the love God has shown me. I can chose to throw them out or deny His involvement in my life (never) or try to listen to what God's meaning really is. I'm sure I get things wrong at times. In fact I assume that I often do and am open to additional inspiration.

And it's a lot of work, a lot of listening for inspiration, a lot of turmoil and struggle, a lot of uncertainty and ambiguity. But I believe that's what we are called to do. That's what ministers do with every sermon, what elders do with every counsel, what teachers do with every lesson - let God take words and give them meaning and relevance for today.

What I think is happening when we disagree on meaning, though, is indeed holy. I once was told by a fellow elder in the church that if I prayed hard enough, God would make me see things his (the elder's, not God's) way. Didn't happen. But what I did see was that God was truly inspiring him to take his point of view as He was inspiring me to take a counter view. By discussing we came up with a truly loving compromise that I saw was God's real desire.

But what I refuse to accept is that these are dead words on a page that can only interpret themselves. For that I don't need God's guidance, just a good dictionary.

PS: for the person who claimed the term eunuch doesn't include homosexuals - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eunuch

Christian Lies Must be OK

2008-11-10T09:44:00.000-08:00

Why do people who profess to be Christian feel so comfortable lying to get their way? I read many accounts of the conduct of "Yes on 8" supporters and groups and found it apalling. The ends justify the means, it appears. It's so nice to know now that not only is greed no longer sinful, so are lies. And yes I'm being sarcastic.

Ends Justify the Means

2008-10-30T06:54:00.000-07:00

Deceit and billigerance. That's the Christian way to get things done, right? My way or no way. The ends justify the means. That's what Jesus would do, right? He would bully people to obey him. He would practice deceit to get people to do things his way. Lies are perfectly ok when they get people to become Christian or at least behave like they should. Plus Jesus would let you commit all the sins you want if you obey one commandment - greed gets a pass if you favor anti-abortion.

NOT!!

Yet this is exactly what I see with pro-life supporters. They are perfectly willing to use intimidation and deceit to change the laws. And of course there's only ONE solution to the problem.

For those pushing to overturn Roe V Wade, it seems like people who work to reduce the number of abortions would be a good thing. It seems that people who promise to overturn the law and then do not, would be a less desirable result. Yet I think that's exactly the situation we have. Obama, I'm confident, will work to reduce the number of abortions. McCain may put a judge on the Supreme Court that might make it more agreeable to overturning the ruling, but that's no guaranty. Meanwhile he doesn't plan on doing anything else.

Meanwhile the Catholic Church wants to punish those who don't agree with it's narrow, single issue. Would they vote for a tyrant if he promised to overturn Roe V Wade?

And if they ever do manage to change the laws, they can rest assured their place in heaven is guaranteed. Once Roe V Wade is overturned, there will never be another abortion in this country.

Yeah right.

But what disturbs me even more are those that would use trickery and deceit to get their way. They mislead people to get them to vote a certain way which well set them up to eventually challenge the laws they dispise. In Colorado such a deceit is happening. A contingent wants people to vote that personhood begins at conception.

To me that is a non-scientific declaration we don't have the wisdom to properly determine. And unintended consequences be damned. If it passed it would essentially end invitro fertilization as no company would want the responsiblity of thousands of fertilized eggs now labeled as people. So by forcing people who don't want children to have them they would deny people who really do want children from having them.

When the health of the mother is in danger, let her die and take the baby with her, is their rally cry. Rape - well that was God's will. Some god they believe in.

The whole idea of giving government control over reproduction is an intimidating concept. Ah the refreshing air of compassionate conservatism.

Quote That Caught my Attention

2008-10-23T09:35:00.000-07:00

"God is dead. Or rather, the Repubs' particularly cruel version, a gloomy, tyrannical, guilt-slingin' God from Colorado Springs who loved war and smacked up women's rights and pretended to tolerate gay people even while hating 'what they do,' a God who snorted the Republican agenda like it was cheap meth in a Denver motel room, has proven to be a complete failure, an abomination of divine connection."--San Francisco Chronicle columnist Mark Morford, Oct. 16.

Questions

2008-10-22T07:40:00.001-07:00

Why do Replublicans claim to want smaller governement while at the same time wanting government inserted into people's reproductive rights?

Why do some people insist the government has a right to say who we can and cannot marry?

What would the Catholic Church do if science invented a pill that makes us live forever? Or even live 500 years?

Aren't diseases the will of God and his way of ending our lives on his timeframe not ours?

Isn't finding cures for diseases working contrary to God's natural order?

If God is already in me, then why is it necessary for communion to transubstantiate?

Why does the Catholic Church continue to prove it's irrelevance outside of religion by fighting against scientific knowledge?

Why do some religions offer certainty through when religion calls for faith?

Why do people lack compassion?

Why don't churches preach against greed and the lust for power?

Why don't churches preach more against materialism and teach their flocks to live within their means?

Does a church really have the right to deny communion to people? Isn't that Christ's gift to all?

Why didn't Jesus write anything down?

If the Bible is the complete actual words of God, does that mean he's had nothing new to say to us in 2000 years?

If people don't mind giving money to the church to help the poor, why do they hate giving it to the government to give to the poor?

Why is taxing the rich to benefit the poor called redistribution of wealth when taking money from the poor and giving it to the rich is called free enterprise?

If we as a nation are willing to pay $2000 per month to keep someone in prison, would we be willing to pay them half that to keep them out of prison? (note: a living wage for someone in rural Indiana is $15,000 yr)

Catholic Pharmacy

2008-10-22T06:48:00.000-07:00

I read a news article about a new pharmacy opening that would provide Catholic approved services which means no birth control provided. Of course I find this makes my brain hurt. I respect a person standing on their principles. I do NOT respect a person inflicting me with their principles.

I also find it illogical for anti-abortion supporters to wish to deny people birth control. They seem to prefer leaving procreation to chance and then credit God.

To me this is a disrespectful way to create a person. It's like going to Vegas and rolling the dice. It seems to me much better to bring a child into the world where it's desired and planned for.

Many of these same people are all for individual responsibility when it comes to money and healthcare and other social aspects of life. But if we leave procreation to God, why take responsibility for ANYTHING in our lives?

Well that is just plain silly, I hear people say. We have to be responsible. Then why not be responsible when performing the god-like act of creation. Its a time in our lives when we are probably closest to feeling as God feels towards us. But no we're supposed to leave it to chance like animals do.

Then there is the science aspect. Everyone is all for science when it improves our food supply through genetic engineering. We have draught resistant corn, pest resistant beans all thanks to genetic science. But some reject science when it challenges their dogma. Our view of God is like an infinite balloon - the more air we pump into it the bigger it becomes. The more I learn about the world and it's complexities and humans and our intellect, the greater God seems to me.

Some people act like adding any more air to their God-balloons with pop them.

Perhaps a silly analogy, but it works for me. And speaking of silly, a priest sprinkled holy water on the new pharmacy to bless it. It made me picture a witch doctor in a tribal costume flinging a noxious potion all around. To someone with no concept of Catholicism, it would look like the same thing. In my mind it looks awfully similar.

If you want God to bless something, all you need do is ask. There needs to be no ceremony. We need no priests as intercessors.

Anyway, back to my main point which seems to be that some people think God wants the human race to be a baby factory.

New Generation Christians

2008-09-26T10:02:00.000-07:00

God gave me a mind that I might use it. Many religious people today would have followers suspend rational thought and just trust what someone else tells them. I have always rebelled at this kind of thinking regardless of the subject. Many religious people disregard science because it comes from rationalism.

Using our intellect is not a sin. Understanding how God's universe works continues to reveal the true glory of his creation. And doubt and faith are brothers not enemies. The opposite of faith is not doubt, it is certainty.

God speaks to me through many media: the Bible, other writings, sermons and words spoken from others, from TV programs on history, travel and science, and most of all through revelation and answers to prayers. God has even shown his humourous side by communicating to me through fortune cookies. Three years ago He was trying to tell me to be patient and for a couple of months nearly every fortune cookie talked about the virtues of patience, as did several readings and sermons at the time. I took His reasurance and was rewarded 6 months later when the plan was revealed.

So it was interesting reading an article from a minister I know. I can identify with what it says because I have been there for decades. I copied part of the article below. it gives me great reassurance in the future of Christianity and of the U.S. and even the world. Yes, it is different than how we approached religion for 2000 years, but is way overdue.

In the book "Unchristian" by David Kinnaman, the thinking of the new generation is described as a result of a study by the Barna Group. It suggests many of those in their 20's and 30' believe churches are sheltered places, lacking spiritual vibrancy, with narrow even ignorant thinking. The new generation prides itself on a practice of investigating for themselves and searching for their own answers to the hard questions.

They are not worried that they don't have the ultimate answers yet. They are not easily persuaded to someone else's view and resist experst (like ministers), but they appreciate discussing things with people, especially with htose eho have broad differences and experiences. An important part of their lives can be described as a search to satisfy their quest for God and answer to life all around them.

What does connect with many members of the new generation is: authentic regular Christians of all sorts, who pray to God, wrestle with sin in their lives, trust in Jesus as Lord and Savior, care for all others without bias, listen and then speak from the heart like Jesus did, and who take care of creation.

Lifestyles

2008-07-02T12:10:00.000-07:00

Gay critics like to talk about people's lifestyles, how some are good and some bad, how there's pretty much just two.

Another pre-dawn train of thought pushed back on that idea. First of all, lifestyles are as varied as there are people. All of them have good points and bad. All of them are much more than sex and spouse.

I also think that while lifestyles can be chosen, for the most part, we arrive at them through the circumstances of life. how many of us truly embrace the lifestyle we have? Is that part of the objection the critics have? That LGBT people are actually standing up and living the lifestyle closer to what they want?

But I don't feel I had much choice in the lifestyle I lead other than the choice to be happy and fulfilled or be miserable, depressed, ill-tempered and ruinous to myself and those around me.
So while by rejecting the standard one-size-fits-all lifestyle the critics would force upon us, I had no choice but to embark on my current one.

Is it ideal? No. Is it where I thought I'd be 30 years ago? Nope. Is it honest? Definitely! Am I being true to myself and those around me? Most certainly. Am I at peace with God? At last!!! Is it true to myself? Yeah. Am I happy? Yep.

My lifestyle right now is not really a choice except in the details. The one I embraced for 20 plus years was definitely a choice... and a bad choice at that. It damaged me, my relationships with family & friends, my wife & son, my career and dramatically constrained my relationship with God.

God was trying to reveal his nature to me and I was saying nope, not now. I busy leading the lifestyle that society, religion, family and You expect me to live.

Thoughts at 4am

2008-07-02T11:35:00.000-07:00

I couldn't sleep this morning. Something my manager said at lunch today got my mind whirling.

In my previous position where I travelled a lot with co-workers, I was pretty much out. It's hard to spend a week on the road with someone and be unable to talk about what's important to you. The team was very accepting, but I think my boss had issues. In my current position, I have not been explicitly out, though a few people know. But I also don't hide the time I spend with Eugene.

Yesterday at lunch, my manager was discussing the company's several afinity groups including the one for GLBT people. He was moaning about how straight white males are about the only ones without an afinity group. I don't have one, he said then pointed at me and said you don't either.

I was tempted to correct him but there were 5 people at the table so courage escaped me. Another illustration of how coming out is not a one time event but something we face every day of our lives.

When he felt excluded, I did tell him he was invited to attend any group he wants to as a supporter. He mentioned going to the LGBT group - the week he retires.

I also took the opportunity to explain more about the purpose of these groups, that they weren't social clubs. They gave minority employees the opportunity to network and find support. The provide the company with the information it needs to hire and retain minority employees and their allies.

He later dismissed an upcoming diversity seminar he is required to attend as a tedious waste of time.

Yesterday afternoon though, I debated whether to come out to my manager. And about 4am this morning, my mind was working through the process. First I need opportunity which hasn't come about today. I prayed for God to give me time with this very busy man.

Some things I would like to tell him...

He grew up and lives in a society designed perfectly for the white, straight male, especially the Type A personality he is. He never had to look at someone he found attractive and wonder if they were a woman, and 9 times out of 10 realize they weren't.

I also want him to understand that you can't tell by looking at people. You can't even tell with your closest relations - parent, sibling, child or even spouse.

So I hope it will improve his sensitivity, but more importantly I hope to improve my self-esteem and pride in what God has worked VERY VERY hard to help me become.

Answered Prayers

2008-06-02T11:12:00.000-07:00

Most religious people, including myself, believe that God answers prayers. It has been suggested that if gay people pray hard enough, they could be changed to straight. Of course they assume that it's God's will that everyone be straight. If you are praying such prayers and God does not seem to be answering, I think he's telling us we are praying for the wrong thing.

So is it truly that people are not praying hard enough, that they don't have enough faith? Or is it that God likes us the way he created us.

When I learned to accept myself as being God's creation, I suddenly started seeing all the real things God wanted me to do. And being straight wasn't on his list.

Many religious gays and our supporters say that if the anti-gay crowd would just pray hard enough, God would make them more accepting, forgiving and loving.

Lately, though, a thought came to me. I wonder how many of the anti-gays are praying for God to be merciful to us. After all Jesus said, "Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing."

Granted its a very selfless thing to do and a prayer I do not make nearly enough. Indeed its rare and difficult to pray for those you disapprove of and is one of my failings.

I also know that many Evangelicals pray for Jesus' quick return to pass judgement upon the wicked. Wouldn't a more Christian prayer be for God to delay his judgement to give everyone as much time as possible to turn to him?

Lead Me Not Into... Sundaes Yum

2008-04-23T12:13:00.000-07:00

Temptation. The other day I was thinking about the definition of temptation. Traditionally its regarded as something put in our way intentionally (by God or Satan usually) to try our moral and ethical resolve. Or namely to try to get us to violate one of the multitude of sins listed in the Bible.

Parenting Skill #321 - Leave candy out where your child can reach it so you can teach them a valuable lesson when you punish them for eating it. (sarcasm alert!)

What got me thinking was a quote I read...

Why comes temptation, but for a man to meet and master and make crouch beneath his foot, and so be pedistaled in triumph.
-- Robert Browning

Interesting take. Bob must have been an alpha male. Not much room for God here... or humility. Well, here's my contemplation on temptation... through rationalization and interrogation of the conceptualization. Sorry, couldn't resist.

First off, a few of my foundational beliefs. I believe the definition my father the DOC Minister used for sin - "Sin is what separates us from God."

I believe that while there are universal sins - killing innocent people, greed, oppression among them - most of the sin we encounter on a daily basis is personal and based on our own morals and ethics. And I believe that morals and ethics are what we work out individually with God and our souls. And it's a sin if it drives a wedge in the relationship we have with God.

Okay, foundational stuff aside, the subject of temptation is something most people know in the back of their minds, but probably have given little thought to. Is the physically attractive man or woman a temptation? How about cheating on our taxes? Or even that strawberry sundae?

So lets focus on the sundae. Is the sundae tempting us? We say it is but it's an inanimate object and incapable of interacting with us at that level. So it really can't be that the sundae is tempting, but our desire to eat it that is. So the sundae isn't really the evil here (and neither is the cute shirtless guy at the beach).

Perhaps temptation lies in opportunity. But we're supposed to answer the door when it knocks. Is a diamond ring lying on a store counter a temptation or an opportunity for a jewel theif? Is making record profits off the world's reliance on oil a temptation or opportunity for oil companies and investors? Is living next door to a Dairy Queen and temptation or an opportunity?

So it must be our desire that is evil, right? I'm on Weight Watchers and a strawberry sundae is about 6 points so that means I can work it into my eating plan if I desire to (pun intended). So my desire to eat a sundae as a part of my controlled eating is not at all evil. Having sex with one's lover is a desirable desire. So desire is not of itself evil either.

So it must be acting upon desire that sullies us in the eyes of God. For if I have lusted for the sundae in my heart, it's as bad as eating it, I've been told. Well right now all this talk of strawberry sundaes is making my mouth water. But I do know that drooling over a sundae is a lot less calories than eating one. And by the way I've got the not lusting after women and coveting another man's wife parts nailed! And even eating a sundae is not bad in and of itself. We constantly indulge our desires, be it for sleep, work, relationships or what we are having for dinner tonight.

So if the thing is not temptation and the desire is not and the indulging in our desires is not, then what is?

Perhaps temptation is when we fail to live up to our own standards and goals that we set for ourselves. Acting upon a desire to eat a delicious looking strawberry sundae would be giving in to temptation if it puts me over my self-imposed calorie limit for the day interferes with my goal of losing weight.

There's also the idea that temptation means failing to live up to God's standards for us. But those aren't clear to me regardless of what some people would have me believe. People would have me quit being gay, which of course means they know nothing about what being gay is. I don't know how to quit being gay. And in spite of my pretending, I don't understand what it truly means to be straight. Might as well tell a mathematical genius to cut it out. How would she stop being a genius? I do know how to quit eating and breathing, though.

As for what God wants for me, I know some of his current chalenges for me. God has challenged me to be patient, to be a gentler driver and to stand up for what is right in the midst of people telling me to sit down and shut up. Not easy standards, but I'm progressing. The hardest part is to listen to and hear what God wants from us. An individual relationship with God is exactly that. There's no one-size-fits all standard from God. We're not all cut out to be monks. Even some monks aren't asked to live up to that monkly (??) standard.

Fortunately there is forgiveness. Just as I would not beat myself up (much) over an extra strawberry sundae, with God's grace I should quit beating myself up over other places where I have failed (which for those waiting to pounce does NOT include being gay). Well there was someone who told me that God was too vindictive to forgive me, but I think God is bigger than that.

The important thing is that I get back on the horse and do better next time. Perhaps instead of praying not to be led into temptation, we should ask for strength to set and meet our personal goals.

Personal Struggle

2008-04-22T07:51:00.000-07:00

I typically do not write about my personal life here. But I need to write this in a place where no one personally knows me. I'm not really looking for advice, I just need a venue to download this from my soul. Prayers are welcome.

My boyfriend Eugene is a wonderful African American man whom I love dearly and thank God constantly for bring into my life. we are coming up on our two year anniversay of having met and falling instantly in love with each other. We have a long distance relationship with 250 miles separating us. As such we only see each other a few days a month. Fortunately in today's world of the internet and cell phones we are in communication almost daily.

Eugene is a happy good natured man. He, like all of us, has personal problems to deal with. Eugene's biggest problem is that he is an alcoholic. I pray constantly for his wellbeing, good judgement and the safety of those around him. He says he is safe, but I know there are times he underestimates the effects the alcohol has on him.

There are underlying reasons for his addiction which I only partly understand. The distance means I can have little direct effect on his actions. But I worry and pray.

Last week Eugene was fired from a good job because after a night of drinking, he was still legally over the limit after 6 hours of sleep. I can't imagine what his BAC was the night before. Thankfully he was home at the peak.

Now I try to be there for him as much as I can. He is being stoic about it, but I am concerned that he has not accepted ownership of this. Fortunately he has 'family' that he lives with so he can weather the lack of income. This same 'family' prevents him from being able to come live with me.

Also, I am not sure I am prepared to live with someone else, even someone I love so dearly. I was in a very co-dependent marriage and have spent the last 6 years building myself. So him moving to my home is not a likely prospect.

I feel a need to write this because of the turmoil I feel and perhaps moreso because of the helplessness. I also struggle to see God's plan here, though I welcome my part and try to be patient as it is revealed. I am not angry at Eugene, but in pain to see him suffer. I am frustrated that there are no second chances for him.

Fortunately we will be together this weekend and I long to hold him in my arms and provide what confort, strength and resolve I can.

The Bible Says...

2008-04-22T07:27:00.001-07:00

Several years ago I had the privilege of listening to Dr John Dominic Crossan speak in an intimate setting. One of the things he said that really struck me was that whenever someone wants to discuss scripture with him he would always start by asking the person to tell him about who God was.

One think I have realized with some clarity is that a person's interpretation of God defines how they interpret scripture. Some would have us believe that scripture is static and un-interpretable. To me that's saying that the scriptures are lifeless and God hasn't provided new, updated guidance in over 1700 years.

I believe the Bible is the personal witness of people describing their relationships with God. It is a beautiful piece of living writing by inspired people who tried to capture the events and emotions in their lives. It speaks to us with different meanings appropriate to our moment in life. I believe that such writing continues today and will continue until the end of time.

For those who believe that the Bible was written by those whose hands were controlled by God, I have a simple question... why did Jesus write nothing? He didn't even insist on a scribe to record his life in real time.

But my theme here is that how one sees God colors their interpretation of scriptures.

Someone who believes in a vengeful God will probably focus on the sin and punishment angle.

Someone who believes in a God who has his chosen ones will likely focus on the gifts of the spirit.

Someone who believes in an inclusive God will focus on passages describing acceptance and forgiveness.

I think the challange we all face is to challenge ourselves to read listening for God to reveal himself to us. Whenever we say, "ah ha, I knew I was right' we're probably not listening very well. But when we say "wow, that's a aspect of God I'd never noticed before" that's when God is there reading with us, speaking to us through his living word.

Faith is a journey not a place we arrive in. Like knowledge, the more we learn, the more we realize what remains to be learned. Instead of trying to make God fit our preconceptions, we should strive to let God reveal himself to us.

Christmas Experience

2008-02-14T10:05:00.000-08:00

In regard to BentonQuest's comment that some people have the philosophy that "you must change so I feel better," reminded me of my recent Christmas experience. My boyfriend Eugene lives 250 miles away. We made plans for him to come to my home for Christmas. I told my Mom and my son that he would be there for the the family celebration and they were fine with it.

I figured my mom, whose picture of holidays came from Norman Rockwell, would be the first to hem and haw. After all I don't recall a Rockwell painting that showed a Thanksgiving scene with a gay couple, a lesbian couple and especially a gay black man at the table. I think he missed a great opportunity. My mom's only concern was squeezing another person around the table.

Then I received a call from my sister stating that if Eugene was there, then her husband would not come because he would feel "uncomfortable." I decided to stand my ground and worry about my happiness instead of trying to make my brother-in-law happy. Decades of trying to make other people happy through maginalizing my wishes really made no one happy.

I told my sister that I was sorry her husband felt that way, but Eugene would be there. I also told her that every day I have to face situations that make me uncomfortable. I stopped short of suggesting he grow up, act mature and deal with reality.

Christmas Day arrived and my brother-in-law was there looking quite uncomfortable. But by the end of the day, he was playing pool and cards with Eugene. So I guess his discomfort went away as he got to know my boyfriend.

I felt very happy at standing up for myself and for the guy who means so much to me. It's not anyone's job to make people comfortable. I like the saying that God comforts the oppressed and oppresses the comfortable. I figure that being open about my relationship with Eugene is following the path God has laid before me.

It wasn't easy but it was surprising the strength of spirit I was given without the tiniest feeling of guilt.

Social Order

2008-02-13T09:54:00.000-08:00

I've always wondered what really truly is behind the homophobia expressed by so many religious people today. I read this quote today and it set me to wondering again.

"Gay" still receives the lion's share of attention these days in both religious and civic debates over sexuality. But at the root of those debates is another "g" word - gender. This is precisely what transgender people are increasingly bringing into the conversations, and for good reason. I have become more and more convinced during these last five years at CLGS that the controversies over "homosexuality" have very little to do with "loving and committed relationships." Those fierce controversies, are instead about the transgression of culturally established gender roles, or the "natural gender complementarity of men and women." In theological language, this transgression is understood as nothing less than a violation of God's own intended order of creation.

-- Rev. Jay Johnson, PhD Senior Director, Academic Research & Resources

I listen to the protests of people who say "the Bible says" this and that only to wonder about the double standards these same people seem to display in regard to other scriptures.

I also watched part of a video about the rise of both Neo-conservatism and Radical Islam as two reactions to the same thing - a culture of the self displayed in the 60's. I tend to agree that there is too much self-centeredness resulting in way too much greed in society today. The responses of some of the people in power was that this self-indulgence must be fixed.

I also think there must be a balance between personal self-interest and social responsibility. Perhaps this balance is the crux of disagreement. Who decides? How much personal freedom is a real risk to society.

Some say that any change to the social order must be stifled and pound Bibles or Korans to prove their point. Through a homogeneous society, people are best served. Perhaps this is true when looked at from a great height. Fit in or else, is the command. There have been societies in the past such as Victorian England and India where social order was prime over human rights. Duty trumps all.

Duty brings either discipline or resentment, sometimes both in the same person. Having been personally forced in to a discipline by society and family and religion, I grew to resent that enforced compliance.

Many of our heroes are people who rejected social constraints, who broke the bonds of social repression, even tyranny. Part of the US problem in Iraq is that we have replaced one social enforcement with another. We haven't let the people go, given them the freedom to set their own course.

Social order proponents believe it is in everyone's best interest to tow the line and behave, do their duty. Is repression of the spirit in my best interest? Am I to bury my happiness to make my neighbors happy... to make God happy? If God is joy, why did I resent his word and supposed plan for my life?

Actually I realized what I thought was God's plan fo rme was actually mankind's plan. When I let go of the duty and opened my eyes to see, he revealed a plan that suited me and joy filled my heart at last.

I tend to think society can thrive on much less order and compliance. God definitely is not threatened by spiritual freedom. Christ came into a severely ordered world to free people from tyranny. I don't believe he came to set up his own tyranny of the soul.

The Consent of the Governed

2008-02-05T13:08:00.000-08:00

With election season upon us, we are again bombarded by religious influence on politics. I received the following article and I thought it reflected my feelings very well. Now I am all for using your moral values and beliefs to choose a candidate. But I challenge everyone, including myself, to not fall for the superficial.

A lot of people voted for G W Bush because of his religious faith. I think they were taken advantage of. He was the antithesis of my moral values and has proven himself a master of deceit to further his agenda of worldy domination, trampling the Constitution, increased wealth for the wealthy and bankrupting the institutions that help the disadvantaged.

I remember how Christ kept himself above politics and focused his eyes upon the people around him. The separation of church and state is not to protect the government but to protect the religious freedoms we hold so dear.

How would Jesus vote?
By Richard T. Hughes, February 01, 2008
http://www.episcopalchurch.org/80050_94466_ENG_HTM.htm
[Religion News Service]

When Mitt Romney has to persuade evangelical voters that he is authentically Christian in order to become president of the United States, something is badly wrong with American politics.

What's wrong is the fact that many evangelical Christians -- some 30 percent of the GOP and 40 percent of Iowa caucus-goers, according to polls -- have little or no appreciation for the country's historic commitment to the separation of church and state.

Take, for example, the Rev. Jason Poling of New Hope Community Church in Pikesville, Maryland, who told The Baltimore Sun that he rejects Romney because "Mormonism is not a Christian religion. It is not aligned with historic Christian beliefs."

Where does the Constitution say that our presidents must be "aligned with historic Christian beliefs?" Romney is entirely right to complain -- as he did in his address on December 6 -- that when voters reject him because of his Mormon faith, they "enable the very religious test the founders prohibited in the Constitution."

Poling said evangelicals and Mormons may look a lot alike, but "theologically, they are worlds apart." Poling complains, for example, that Mormons don't believe in the Trinity, and "the Trinity is non-negotiable."

Really? To be president of the United States one has to be orthodox on the doctrine of the Trinity?

The problem here is far bigger than people like Poling. The real issue -- implicit but seldom spoken out loud -- is the widespread belief, especially among evangelicals, that the United States is a "Christian nation."

It's not a belief that's confined to evangelicals. Christian Smith, the noted sociologist from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, reports that "not only conservative Protestants but the majority of Americans believe that America was founded as a Christian nation."

So it's no surprise that Sen. John McCain was able to make the perfectly absurd comment in October that "the Constitution established the United States as a Christian nation."

There is a sense in which America is a Christian nation. After all, some 80 percent of the American people claim to be Christian in one sense or another.

But the Christian character of the United States is comparable to the "Christian character" of the Roman Empire following Constantine, or the "Christian character" of the Holy Roman Empire in the 16th century. Christian trappings abound, but if one compares the Christian dimensions of the two empires with the teachings of Jesus, the differences are stunning.

Jesus counseled peace; empires practice violence. Jesus counseled humility; empires ruthlessly pursue power. Jesus counseled concern for the poor; empires exalt the rich. Jesus counseled modesty; empires embrace extravagance. Jesus counseled forgiveness and love for one's enemies; empires seek vengeance.

Like those ancient empires, America abounds in Christian trappings. Still, the United States as an empire embraces virtually all the values that have been common to empires for centuries on end: peace through violence, the rich over the poor, power over humility.

In a word, it rejects the values of Jesus. Yet Americans like McCain -- and the legions of evangelicals who form the base of the GOP -- claim that the United States is a Christian nation.

If America were really a Christian nation, and if Christians were faithful to the mandates of Jesus, evangelicals would demand from Mitt Romney and any other candidate answers to where they stand on questions of war and peace, wealth and poverty, and domestic and world hunger.

Instead, they want to know where Romney stands on the Trinity.

Until evangelicals exhibit a greater appreciation for the Constitution on the one hand, and for the values Jesus taught on the other, one can only conclude that the Christian factor they have injected into U.S. politics is fundamentally bogus.

It subverts not only democracy, but also the deepest meaning of the Christian faith.

[end]

The Pope Strikes Again

2008-01-03T11:39:00.000-08:00

Recently the Pope in Spain spoke out against gay marriage stating...

"The family is the primary agent of peace and the negation or even the restriction of rights of the family ... threatens the very foundations of peace."

I don't understand the logic of how allowing more people to be married and create government recognized families with all the rights married people have is in any way negating or restricting those rights. If anything it seems to broaden those rights and create a more positive environment.

He also said the family is "based on the unbreakable union of man and woman and represents the privileged environment where human life is welcomed and protected from the beginning to its natural end." Sounds like he's shutting out the kids of gay and unwed parents as well.

This is just another endorsement that the Catholic Church has no meaningful place for gays. Of course I prefer love and acceptance over rules and dogma.

On Atheism

2008-01-02T07:11:00.000-08:00

There seems to be some concern with the affects of atheism on society today. I have had many conversations with people who called themselves atheists and I found them to be thoughtful and interesting discussions. I have also been surprised by the similarity between their beliefs and my own.

I have hypothesized that most atheists don't really reject the idea of spirituality and even a creator spirit I would identify as God. It seems that most atheists I have known are mainly rejecting the version of God depicted by their childhood church, by vocal religions and by society in general. I have listened to Richard Dawkins and when he says God would have to be unbelievably enormous to really exist, I say exactly!!! God is.

In testifying to my faith, I have often felt that calling God by the name "God" is to attach all the connotations and stereotypes people have ascribed over time. My image of God is often so far removed from some mainstream religions that it's difficult to reconcile that they are the same entity. I have to spend a lot of time explaining that my concept of God is far different from what they learned in Sunday school or Catechism class.

I suppose many atheists have travelled a similar path to my own and threw out that traditional image of God from their youth that didn't fit their beliefs. Unfortunately, in the whirlpool of "hate the sin, love the sinner" they have thrown the baby out with the bathwater. Instead of retooling their misconceptions, they find it easier to reject all of it.

I admit atheism is easier than apologetics and sometimes think to claim the label myself simply to have a cleaner slate to expound from.

But in the darkest night of my crisis in life, in faith, in relationships, when all was in doubt, the one thing I could definitively attest to was God's presence in my life.

Next Time a Llama

2007-09-16T11:41:00.000-07:00

You may have noticed that I've made several posts today. recently I've been able to put aside the rat race and as such the brain constipation has cleared. Ok, bad visual analogy.

Also I've been two weekends apart from Eugene and am trying to occupy my time with more solitary pursuits.

Last night I joined a half dozen gay friends for dinner. Next to me sat a retired minister and next across from him sat a psychoanalyst. The subject of religion came up and the two found common ground in the current way the Bible is being misinterpreted.

My minister friend is rarely at a loss for words, but I saw him speechless for the first time when the psychoanalyst declared his belief in reincarnation. I started to give my own prediction of what the afterlife might be like. But I stopped when I could see that despite his ability to reconcile his sexuality, he still had pretty standard ideas about the hereafter.

Meanwhile on the other side of me is a friend who doesn't believe in Christ's redemption. Instead of finding others' beliefs as an assault on my own (unless they present them as such), I find listening to different ideas refreshing and enriching.

Wrath of God

2007-09-16T11:19:00.000-07:00

The way some people describe God - vengeful, vindictive, spiteful, punitive - it makes God sound like Zeus with his lightning bolts or Poseidon with storms and floods smiting the people they disagreed with.

It seems that people who subscribe to this version of God could worship any entity. All the ancient gods punished those that did evil. It's also like God saying 'do what I say not what I do.' You humans are not allowed to kill, but I can and am more than willing to do so. You humans are supposed to forgive those who cross you, but I, God, will energetically destroy those who cross me.

To march into town and destroy every man, woman, child and animal seems to me more like Hebrews justifying their actions than a holy instruction.

What makes God worth worshipping is his willingness to forgive us, to not let the pettiness of our lives get in the way of our relationship.

I recently heard someone say that Christianity is slly because the victim has to forgive those that hurt them. This person's opinion was that righteous vindication was the proper response to being made a victim. He felt that forgiveness was like giving permission to the aggressor.

What they fail to realize is that forgiveness removes from us the mantle of victimhood. We are more empowered thru forgiveness than we ever will be through anger and retribution.

Revenge is a perpetuation of victimhood. We can never move on until the score is somehow settled. Forgiveness gives us power over victimhood.

Which is one of the reasons God forgives. It eliminates the need to put so much destructive energy into retribution and allows growth to occur. Christ himself described God as the party host. He invites all to come and celebrate. He mourns for those who do not come, but parties with those that do. Not being at the party is tragic enough. Nowhere in the story did the host ride through the streets of town killing those that didn't show up.

God's wrath? Seems to me we are projecting our wrath upon God.

No Room in the Inn

2007-09-16T09:38:00.001-07:00

It’s interesting how ideas will churn in my head until one day a concept pops out. It is one of those ideas that I share now. First some of the ingredients that went into the recipe.

Last year there was much fuss over stores saying “Happy Holidays” instead of Merry Christmas. Their attempt to be inclusive and inoffensive was greeting with scorn by those who apparently believe that commercialism is only proper if it invokes Christ. The phrase from years before about putting Christ back in Christmas was more an attempt to reflect on the real meaning of the holidays instead of requiring Christ’s seal of approval on the materialism society has created.

Walmart has become the everyman’s golden calf. We worship before low prices. We will sell our souls to the Chinese to save a few bucks. We sacrifice safety and standards for greed. But I digress.

The second ingredient that went into my mental stew was an article I read on a progressive Christian web site. It talked about if we really want to elect leaders with religious values we should stop focusing on whether they go to church or how do they stand on my pet value and instead focus on hw many things they do that the Bible recommends.

What are their plans for healing the sick, feeding the hungry, providing justice to the oppressed, clothing the naked… Which ones are blessed as peacemakers, soft hearted, generous and forgiving. These are the things that make a truly values based leader.

These two ideas collided and tasted great together and out popped my ideas.

Put the Christ back in Christianity.

So many Christians seem to dismiss the words and actions of Christ in favor of pontificating over the writings of Paul or even select passages from Leviticus. The preach a hate-filled vengeful God who is a polar opposite to the person God was when he walked the earth in the form of Jesus.

For me, the words and actions of Christ are pretty much all that matters in the Bible. Everything else is supporting interpretations. If you’re going to quote scripture, try limiting it to Christ’s message.

How beautiful Christianity would be if all Christians practiced Christs demonstrations of tolerance, inclusiveness, forgiveness, the challenging of our traditional convictions, compassion and most of all love for all.

Let’s put Christ back in Christianity.

Single in a World of Couples

2007-09-16T09:18:00.000-07:00

I have to confess I am not attending church services these days. I have searched and have not found a place I feel welcome that is near by. I live in a conservative midwestern city and even the liberal denominations seem not to have a place at the table where I am made welcome.

It's not wholly because I'm gay, though that is a good portion. But there is also the fact that I'm in church alone. I'm not lonely in my life. I have a boyfriend and many friends. But I am made to feel alone because I choose to pursue my faith in ways my partner and friends cannot or will not join.

Lately I've been more aware that our world is biased toward traditional families. Anyone who thinks the traditional family is in danger hasn't been to a town festival, school event or church service and looked around. Our institutions marginalize those that are non-traditional. And some try to add legal weight to that maginalization. Being in the midst of it all just leaves a hollow pit in my stomach.

At times it is really frustrating that my guy is 250 miles away. Because there are things we can tackle together, there is alienation we can weather together that is tiring to endure alone. And one of those things is sitting in a pew trying to worship God when a good portion of the service is worshipping the families.Single in

Unique Relationship

2007-09-16T09:14:00.001-07:00

If there were no Bible, what would you believe? For most of us, probably the exact same thing we already believe. The danger here is that when we quote scripture, we tend to ignore the ones that challenge us and embrace the ones that we believe reinforces our existing beliefs.

We open up our Bibles in order to say “I told you so” instead of letting God speak to us, challenge us, prod us out of our comfort zone. Many people seem to think that what God tells them is meant for universal consumption. We are called to witness not lecture.

God has a plan for my life. I don’t presume that his plan applies to anyone but myself. I’m glad to share how God relates to me even when some decry that I am either following my own delusions or those of Satan.

I do have work to do. It’s work that God has patiently asked me to do, but which I, through cowardice and shame could not face for most of my life. Now I welcome the work he asks me to do. It is not easy and I face derision and ridicule as you can see in some of the comments left here.

But God gives me the strength to keep coming back here and witnessing regardless of how many people mock the relationship I have with God.

A friend of mine told me that Thoreau, when asked if he had gotten right with God replied, “I wasn’t aware we had quarreled.”

Hardness of Heart

2007-09-09T05:28:00.000-07:00

The Bible speaks of the hard-heartedness of people. That is the one thing I thing every person can personally be involved with. It is epidemic in our society and in our churches. People hurting other people becuase of their own biases or indifferences and dearth of empathy.

I assume people are hard-hearted in their attempt to maintain a purity, whether in the processes we use to live our lives or in the dogmas used to manage faith. These people are often termed as mean-spirited and some can be very angry and vindictive.

I was saddened by the recent passing of Lucciano Pavarotti. Not only a great singer, he seemed from what I could see, to be a genuinely happy man. Reading about his funeral, I saw what a beautiful service had been given him full of music and the love of those around him.

Then I read this...

That Pavarotti — a divorced man who had a child out of wedlock — was given public viewing and a funeral in the cathedral spurred some debate here. A Modena parish priest, the Rev. Giorgio Bellei, told Corriere della Sera that the move amounted to "profanation of the temple." Other critics noted that last year the church refused to grant a religious funeral to a paralyzed man who had a doctor disconnect his respirator.

The hard-heartedness of the church in these situations amazes me. Churches are not monuments to righteousness. They are places for ordinary struggling people to find God. They should always be a refuge, warm and welcoming. Instead, so many have become closed communities where those deemed less than perfect in behavior or attitude are shut out.

Mean-spirited actions are what drive people from a church. One heartless act will counter hundreds of welcoming ones.

As I see it, we have a choice to be bitter, selfish and angry or magnanimous and welcoming.

Still Here, Still Queer, Still Christian

2007-07-13T11:39:00.000-07:00

Wow, I just noticed I haven't posted here in a long time. I am still here and while I think about writing here, I obviously haven't. I feel like I've matured in my faith, though I have moved farther away from organized religion.

Ironically, I did enjoy going to the local cathedral with a Catholic friend of mine. Though I thought the ritual to be over the top, it was a great show with grand pageantry and music. I did wonder if people in the pews truly undertood the meanings of the symbols. But there was a great comfort in being able to worship annonymously. And to worship free from the church "family" content typical of protestant churches (like childrens sermons, prayer requests, church business and event announcements and a parade of people I don't know).

I do wish to belong to a church at this time and don't care to sit through a bunch of fluff in order to have a worshipful experience.

I am still far removed from Papal Catholicism, though. I recently went to a local tavern where a priest was giving a talk on prayer. Does he actually believe the things he was saying, I had to wonder. It's difficult for me to fathome that a rational adult can believe that wearing a brown scapular gives you an express lane to heaven when you die.

I bristle at the complex and contrived rules Roman Cotholicism professes. What is its purpose - to enlighten and inpire? or to confuse?

So I am still here, still searching, still learning, still talking with God, still wandering. Yet, not all who wander are lost.

Being Used

2006-10-17T10:37:00.000-07:00

I've said this before. The Republicans are using the Christian right to keep themselves in power and push their agenda. Just like they are using gay bigotry to generate votes.

When Bush first started touting faith based initiatives as a way of doing government programs, I was afraid that I, via taxes, would be paying for evangelism. I have to admit now that my worries did not come to fruition, though not for the reason I suspected, but due to the typical White House maneuver of failing to fund their promises and dictates.

So far from being a way to reward the Christian right for their support, it's just another of the ways that this administration will blatantly use people to further their agenda.

As David Kuo's new book reinforces, they publicly support the Christian right while
belittling them in private. Likewise according to Log Cabin leaders, Republicans privately befriend gays while publicly speaking against them.

Kuo also stated that contrary to Bush'd promise of $8 billion in new funding for faith based social programs, the governement actually budgeted zero new dollars.

Meanwhile if you hear a sucking sound, it's our civil rights being flushed down the toilet as Bush signs into law a bill that allows torture, imprisonment without due process or even charges being filed, secret trials and secret sentences including the ability to execute prisoners, use of questionably obtained testimony and not revealing evidence against a person charged.

"Nothing could be further from the American values we all hold in our hearts than the Military Commissions Act," the ACLU said. All for the illusion that we are safer. Meanwhile violent crime is out of control. I'm not afraid of a terrorist attack but I am concerned about being robbed or attacked.

So when tony Snow talks about "...harnessing the power of faith in dealing with some of the most intractable problems our society faces," I'm sure he's not lying, but also suspect it probably means harnessing the power of faith for the Republican leaders who claim to know best how to deal with our problems.

Now I know that none of this is really new. But what offends me is the brazen way this administration goes about it. Now I'm all for making us safer and for lower taxes and improved values. But while they get us all fighting amongst ourselves, they raid the cookie jar.

Remember their motto - the end justifies the means. And the Bush dynasty end is to restore the ruling class.

Hey You Kids! Outta the Limbo Pool!

2006-10-09T08:45:00.000-07:00

Quoted from Stuart Jeffries - The Guardian 10/09/06

(Blogger Note 10/14/07: I originally erroneously used the term pergatory instead of limbo. Was probably thrown off by Stuart's quote which also referenced purgatory. But it was nicely pointed out by a keen reader so I have corrected my admitted mistake. Also I was admittedly pretty sarcastic when I wrote this a year ago.)

The Catholic has announced that unbaptized children will henceforth go directly to heaven and not spend eternity in limbo as it has previous porclaimed for the last 700 years.

The Catholic church now believes that God wishes all souls to be saved. It seems remiss, to put it mildly, that the church took seven centuries to come to this more compassionate position.

Pope John Paul II announced that any Christian who gave up drinking or smoking in 2000 would have his or her time in Purgatory lessened. We thereby saw the birth of the Vatican nanny state. In this announcement John Paul followed Boniface VIII, who, during the church's jubilee in 1300, granted pardon from all Purgatorial torment to anyone who died while on pilgrimage to Rome that year.

Is any Catholic so blessed as to believe in the supposed truth of a purgatory administered by papal whim? It would be nice to think that the afterlife isn't quite so - how to put this? - silly.

Dear God,

The Cardinals and I have met and discussed your policies regarding unbaptized children having to spend time in limbo (see the Holy Book of Inferno by Dante) and feel this is unwarranted behavior by a diety otherwise known for justice. In this light we are changing the limbo policy. Please conform to this new theology immediately.

Sincerely,
Your Holiness, The Pope

The last bit of silliness is mine. Has it occurred to anyone that trying to figure out the diffinitve law of God is sheer folly. The mystery of the faith isn't that it takes a Pope and 200 Cardinals to figure it all out, but that it's so simple a child can understand it.

God is loving and just.

Love God.
Love each other.
Love ourselves.

Everything else is covered by grace so we can quit debating how many angels can dance on the head of a pin.

Truth, Love, Evil & Proclivity

2006-10-09T08:34:00.000-07:00

In response to my July 13, 2006 entry, "Truth in Love" wrote...

It sounds to me, as it always does, that when it comes to the subject of being a "gay Christian" the homosexual individual is only willing to interpret Scripture in the light of their proclivity rather than allowing themselves to interpret their proclivity in the light of Scripture.

Deciding what is "right" first and then using scripture to confirm a preconceived ideology is akin to being a god unto one's self.

The Bible's clarity on the subject of homosexual behavior is so unambiguous that only a completely perverted interpretation could justify the things that are routinely pronounced on various "gay Christian" blogs as being truth.

Unconditional love does not equate to unconditional acceptance. This is one of many theological leaps that are used to justify your behavior and your decisions, but the God-honoring truth is far removed from the reality of which you cling to.

Ultimately, you are proposing a beautiful side of evil which will have dire consequences for those you have led astray...

TIL

Of course I do have a response with my naive hope that those TILs out there might at least consider an alternate view. Sadly self-proclaimed keepers of the truth seldom are open to enlightenment and revelation. You can just sign me as Faith Through Doubt.

It sounds to me, as it always does... sounds to me like you are reading our writings from your own proclivity, your own preconcieved notion that homosexuality is evil and condemned by God. Try interpreting it with an open mind. What if God doesn't condemn homosexuality? If you can't even consider that posibility, then you should probably take your closed mind on to other topics. No gay people will listen to you. All things are possible, remember?

You're also coming in at the end of the play, my friend. You weren't witness to when I thought like you. You have never experienced 40 years of thinking God condemns you. You have never experienced what it's like to live with only the false hope you would profess for 40 years. You have never prayed for 40 years and think God was ignoring you. You have never felt condemned for what you are, instead of what you do.

Scipture was made for man not man for the scripture. In fact scripture was written by man, not by God. Be careful that your worship of scripture not cloud God's revelation to you. And by using the word proclivity, I see you have already judged me. Judgement is reserved for God. So be careful about who you claim is taking of a god-like role.

What does your interpretation of scripture offer me? Loneliness. A life without intimacy. A life without the full depth of human love. Oh, sure I could become a priest and dedicate myself to the church. But I believe God calls those people into service and he did not call me to that. And it seem s like it's so easy and even insincere to demand of others what you are unwilling to do yourself.

I could pretend I am straight and enter a loveless marriage and not discomfit the world with my orientation. Wait! I already did that and screwed up several lives in the process not to mention being a pathological liar in the name of being a "good Christian."

As far as deciding what is "right" first, you are correct that evil men will often use scripture to support their purposes. But, I did not decide what was "right". God patiently revealed it to me after decades of resistance on my part. He showed me the truth for my life. God is forefront in my life and I follow only him. I only am here to bear witness to his work in my life.

Yet, not only do evil men use the Bible to prove their preconceived ideologies. Well intentioned people do as well. None of us start with a clean slate. We are taught by our parents, ministers, elders and teachers. We take on their interpretations. We can either embrace those exclusively or open ourselves to new revelation. Regardless, I would challenge everyone, myself included, that they are using scriptures to reinforce their existing beliefs. Scripture was not written to prove us right but to challenge us to open our hearts and minds to God's wisdom.

In fact we do this in all aspects of our lives, not just faith. It's called a scotoma - being blind to those things that don't fit our idea of reality. I know I am influenced by my scotomas and try to challenge them whenever I can. I try not to get too comfortable with ANY interpretation - mine or yours.

The Bible's clarity on the subject of homosexual behavior is so unambiguous that only a completely perverted interpretation could justify the things that are routinely pronounced on various "gay Christian" blogs as being truth. Quote me Paul's words in Greek and repeat that statement.

There are countless "unambiguous" statements in the Bible that are routinely ignored. Have you sold all you have and given it to the poor? (Yeah, I picked an obvious one, but I'm sure if I flipped through the book, I'd quickly have a dozen more.) Or do you, like me and so many others, "re-interpret" that to fit your preconceived ideologies? And if you persist in believing that Sodom was destroyed because of homosexuality, you DEFINITELY have a scotoma.

Unconditional love does not equate to unconditional acceptance True. I have never advocated a blank check, anything goes theology. But grace is built on love, not actions nor acceptance. There are consequences for behavior as there is also forgiveness. But God is unconditionally understanding. He knows my situation better than I do. I put my trust in him and I do not believe he would lead me astray. Yes, I make mistakes. But I believe God prefers to welcome me as a flawed individual rather than condemn me for seeking the love, companionship and human intimacy that every human needs to be healthy. I don't believe God gives us challenges in order to drive us away from his presence and his hope.

the God-honoring truth is far removed from the reality of which you cling to. Other than being derisive, I struggle a bit to understand the theology here. Truth is truth. God is truth. I as a mere human cannot know the full truth. That's why I have to rely on faith. And the faith I have is that God can use me, a flawed vessel "Just As I Am" to glorify his kingdom. Perhaps you mean only "perfect" people do God honor and everyone else sullies him.

...propose a beautiful side of evil... You consider me evil? You consider what I do evil? You abhor homosexuality that much? Why? I struggle to understand the vitriol expressed by otherwise good Christians. Explain it to me please. I struggle to see how the love my partner and I share compares with using chemical weapons to murder thousands of people, to forcing millions into gas chambers, to incinerating countless lives, to the greed that robs thousands of their pensions, to the imprisonment of people for what they think, to the persecution of children, to denying food, education and health care to millions, to the hatred and greed that fuels all the worlds seemingly infinite forms of injustice. Explain it to me please because I just don't get it.

Or do you just prefer us all to hide in the closet - live a lie. Practice deception. Sounds like you advocate for the father of lies. I reject shame and lies. Traditional religious and societal intolerance has forced people to pretend to be someone they are not which has terrible psychological effects. Those effects have often manifested themselves in unacceptable behavior such as Mark Foley's.

Instead, loving Christians should be encouraging people to be themselves, respected individuals with much to offer and the right to have a fulfilling life. Sure we all have our struggles being the person God would have us be, but we should be picking each other up and offering hope. I am a child of God and live in his loving presence. And the hope, joy and ministry he has blessed me with have brought new life to my desperate soul.

dire consequences... I am constantly surprised by people's views of God as so un-Christ-like. If God punishes me for bringing a message of hope in God to those you have driven away from him with hopelessness and despair... so be it. I cannot worship a Hitlerian form of god who demands blind obedience and would exterminate undesireables while cultivating only those he would deem idea specimens.

I have lived in shame. I have hid my light under a bushel for far too long. Now I let my faith, my hope shine for those who still live in darkness.

Remember that Jesus loved the lepers of his day. Which is easier - jumping on the anti-gay bandwagon or standing up for those the mainstream would marginalize? Beware the easy path. My recommendation to you is to let God worry about the truth and you can focus on just being loving.

Pope Benedict Arnold

2006-09-17T07:19:00.000-07:00

First off, for the pope to use a quote that condemned everything new that Muhammed taught as evil was irresponsible in the extreme. To find no worth in the unique aspects of Islam is ignorance and pure bigotry. It is the human-centric view that there can be a single correct religion. What childishness!

And for a religious leader to suppose that the faith of his flock depends solely on a perception of infalibility is a statement to the tenuousness of that faith.

For the pope to later state that he did not actually believe those words, but just quoted them is frankly bull. One of the cardinal rules (pun intended) of public speaking is to make sure your quotes are relevant to your topic and message. To state he just threw in a random quote that was irrelevant to his message makes him sound autistic. Pope Rainman.

Then taking a lesson from G.W.'s prayer book, he apologizes with the standard non-apology - "I'm sorry you are offended."

Sounds like the pope's real intent is to secularize the world by making Catholicism irrelevant and out of touch with people, understanding and compassion. Fortunately, just like most Catholics I know, the rational Muslim community knows the pope doesn't speak for the vast majority of the Christian world.

Perhaps we should treat religion like sex - everyone's free to do it any way they want, but only in private and it's a topic not dicussed in polite company.

Nursing the Hurt

2006-08-23T11:20:00.000-07:00

I've always thought that one difference that Christianity brought to the table that other religions didn't (excepting perhaps Buddhism) was the emphasis on universal, unconditional love. In talking with a friend recently, I realize there's another aspect to life that Christianity (and again perhaps Buddhism) emphasizes and that is forgiveness.

I see a lack of forgiveness to be at the core of a lot of people's interpersonal problems and it even takes the forefront in cultural differences as well. I think half the problems in the Middle East are essentially because both predominant cultures have "eye-for-an-eye" mentalities. It's the Hatfields and the McCoys - family feud - mentality.

On a personal level, this inability or unwillingness to let go of the hurts in our lives causes many divides. I have dear friends who nurture and feed the memories of events where people who loved them let them down. They can't forgive. They can't let it go. They can never move forward. They set requirements on the other person as a precondition for moving forward.

Their thought process usually involves some requirement that the other person change or make up the difference. It's like saying someone can file for bankruptcy, but they still have to pay the money back before we'll give them a job or a house loan.

People are sometimes willing to "forgive" but want the other to acknowledge that forgiveness. They want someone to wear a badge of defeat or humiliation. Am I made better by someone else's humiliation? Am I a better person because someone declared me the victor? Hardly.

We really put conditions on our relationships when we don't forgive. Here's a newsflash... it's not unconditional love if there are conditions attached. Whenever our actions are predacated on someone else's actions, it's not unconditional. We are to love like God loves - without limits. We are to forgive like God forgives - constantly and without acknowledgement.

Sometimes forgiveness is the only way we can move forward. It's starting from a level playing field again. But many people won't let that happen. Forgiveness is a gift we give to others. But the benefit is ours. It is freeing ourselves of the past. If we expect a thank-you note, we probably haven't really freely given our forgiveness.

Thankfully, God's forgiveness is not like human forms. Think about how many times we ask God for forgiveness, but how often do we thank him for it? And I'm thankful that he'll forgive me knowing full well I'll go out and make the same mistake again.

To paraphrase Henry David Thoreau...

If you want to show someone that what they are doing is wrong, then do that thing the right way yourself. Don't try to convince them they are wrong for they will believe what they see. Let them see.

Thanks for the Encouragement

2006-07-26T07:57:00.000-07:00

Thanks for all the encouraging comments everyone has been adding lately. While I welcome those that challenge my ideas, it's even more exciting to see that there are many of us on the same journey. I'm very glad that my words, my witness, have touched others and your comments give me strength.

We are all told we should pick up Christ's cross and carry it and we are also told that God's burden is easy. The two didn't make sense to me for a long time. The work I did much of my life as an ardent church member seemed to be an extreme burden at times. It was draining and exhausting.

Then a few years ago, shortly after coming out, a new friend told me that we need to make sure we are carrying the right cross - the burden God really wants us to carry instead of the ones we pick up ourselves or let others thrust upon us.

During my coming out process and my crisis of faith, I came to realize that most of the things I was caught up in at church were of my own doing and contrary to the work God wanted me to do. It was good work that needed doing, but I came to realize that there are others for that work. God had another mission for me, one that he had greatly and uniquely equiped me for.

So I dropped all those crosses that I had picked up and lifted the one that had always seemed the most daunting, most impossible of all - sharing my story as a gay man who was hanging on to his faith. But surprisingly, it's a mission I welcome and look forward to. It is work that God inspires me to do and he gives me great energy for it. I now understand the persecution for Christ's sake. I would much rather have people hate me for what I am than love me for what I am not.

This blog is one aspect of that ministry God has given me. There are many other aspects of this work, the most challenging is coming out at work over and over again. It's not easy at times. But being yelled at, chastized, despised and rejected are trivial when I know God is with me. Often there are frustrations, but with frustrations comes God's encouragement. I take comfort in being one drop of water eroding the mountains of bigotry and hard-heartedness.

One of the gifts God has given me this year is also another aspect of my ministry. After years of pleading and (not quite) patience, God brought a wonderful man into my life. And yet even this gift is filled with challenges, not the least of which is the 250 mile distance we must endure. There's also the bi-racial aspect of our relationship which has brought a new perspective into my life and new worries for my mother.

So, I'm saying to be careful of the crosses we pick up. If they are the ones God wants us to carry, he'll energize us and equip us and his burden really will be light. If it's not, you may have someone else's cross by mistake.

I'm no saint or theologian. I'm as flawed as anyone else. I have weaknesses and struggle with the sins in my life. I try to listen and obey, try not to worry about tomorrow and just have faith in my relationship with my creator.

So thanks for being there. Thanks for reading. Thanks for sending your encouragement.

Tapestry Conference

2006-07-13T11:45:00.000-07:00

A couple of weeks ago, I had the pleasure of attending Tapestry, a LGBT religious retreat for the gay affinity groups of the United Church of Christ, the Christian Church DOC, and the American Baptist Church. We met in Indianapolis, ironically at the same time as Exodus International (the ex-gay organization) was meeting 60 miles away in Marion, IN.

The theme was Live, Love, Laugh and Lead. There were some great speakers and some inspiring music. I met several very interesting people and was inspired by all the allies the LGBT community has in our churches.

So I wanted to share a few of the ideas that I took away.

Understanding Being a Minority

One woman in my small discussion group said she felt like a minority, not because she was straight, but because so many people at the conference were so well versed theologically. I told her that many of us are self-taught. When something dear to you tells you that you are not worthy, you dig into it and try to find resolution.

At fist I tried to find the loopholes in the scriptures. But then God showed me I had made some wrong assumptions. Like I wrote in my previous entry, I don’t study scriptures to validate what I am, I study it to maintain relevance of religion in my life.

But a bigger theme she mentioned was that so few of us are actually blessed with knowing what being a minority feels like. And until you experience the vulnerability, the marginalization, it is difficult to sympathize with other minorities. Being a majority is not a blessing from God or a sign of his love. It’s merely an accident of circumstances. But so many lift it up as something holy.

New Reformation

We are beginning to experience a new reformation of the church. The turmoil of churches today is happening not from outside influences, but from people growing up in the church who find they cannot accept the dogma handed down for generations.

As such there is a new rediscovery of the scriptures and what their place is in our lives. More and more people are not satisfied with the interpretations of scripture coming from their pulpits and are reading and studying themselves. Look at the interest in the Gnostic writings. I’ve been reading some books on these writings and when you take a critical look at the Bible, you have to admit it’s definitely tailored to influence patterns of belief.

In fact one book stated that if Alexandria had defeated Rome, we’d have a completely different version of Christianity.

I believe we are truly entering a new enlightened age, where religion is personal and a one-on-one relationship with God is more embraced than ever.

LGBT Influence

One speaker asserted that LGBT Christians are the core force in this new reformation. Or insistence in inclusion has many praying and studying in ways most of us have our whole lives. There are internal struggles that will always occur when the need to be more loving conflicts with our religious convictions.

And in my life, when I reach these impasses, I have to remember Christ’s greatest commandment – love. So when loving someone is contrary to conviction, love has to win out. Changing my religious convictions hasn’t shattered my faith. Quite the opposite in fact occurs as through these struggles our faith matures and grows stronger.

Our mere presence and desire to fully serve God as we are called will be a perpetual thorn in their sides until all bigotry is gone.

Get Sex Back Where it Belongs - in Church

Another struggle and probably the key one for many, though they won’t admit it, is that LGBT Christians means having to discuss sex in the church instead of keeping it in the gutter where it belongs.

The church has told us repeatedly “sex is dirty so save it for someone you love and marry.” But sexuality is a gift from God and needs to be discussed in the church. America’s puritanical upbringing has made the world a dangerous place by sticking our heads in the sand when it comes to giving our children honest answers about sex.

Marginalization

One of the things that hit me most were the stories of churches unable to embrace LGBT members. They would speak of being unwilling to marginalize that conservative old base (usually with ample money) by becoming affirming to LGBT people. This really offended me. We are willing to continue marginalizing gay people to keep from causing discomfort to the conservative minority.

There’s one key difference. If you reject the conservative stick-in-the-muds, they’ll change or find a new church home. They won’t reject their Christianity. But by continuing to marginalize gay people, they continue to tell us we are not worthy, that there is no hope and we should stay quiet or far away. They deprive gays of love and hope and the Good News. They cast gays out into the streets with nowhere to go.

So which is the greater ill – driving someone from a church who will go to another church or driving someone from God?

Act Up

Our parting speaker was a energetic gospel style speaker who continuously charged us to not sit passively by but to engage our faith and agitate those who would bind us to traditions and limit our service and acceptance.

I have seen it all too often. We argue from a secular approach. We allow the conservatives to hold the definitions of faith and love and acceptance. We need to stand up in the glory of our creation and with full knowledge and faith challenge those dogmas that have nothing to do with love and God and everything to do with control and power.

Don’t buy in to our perceived weakness. We have the power of God behind us – agitate!

My Response to Sarvesh aka Joshua

2006-07-13T11:29:00.000-07:00

First, Joshua, I apologize for the time it took to write my reply. My priorities have been elsewhere lately on other personal and spiritual matters.

But as I read your response, all I saw was more tired rhetoric. Every time I talk to someone like yourself, the words are sadly the same. You seem more concerned with scripture than people's struggles, with people being part of a church than the church reaching out to the marginalized. I pour out my heart, my personal witness of my relationship with God and I get quoted scripture in return.

You wrote...

Dude, Marriage is covenant of God between Man and Women not between person of Same Sex ok.

No, not ok. Your words are hurting real people, real children, real families all in the name of preventing some apocalyptic societal meltdown. You foster hatred and bigotry which breeds violence. You deprive people of hope, you drive them from churches and fail to share with them the wonderful news of God's unconditional love. Your lack of compassion is tragic. You deny marriage to those who honor it in the name of preserving it for those who hold it in contempt.

I know several same sex marriages that God has blessed. It's just the small mindedness of men that refuses to recognize what God can do. You limit God. God can covenant with whom he will. Jesus showed church leaders of his day that God's covenant was not restricted to those the priests thought were acceptable.

And you might want to read the story of David and Jonathan with an open mind. David describes their love as more than that of women. They became "one spirit" and covenanted with each other and with God. Their relationship mirrors my current relationship much more than it does my traditional marriage.

But the bigger issue has nothing to do with religion. It's about legal protections you would deny people who desperately need them and using God to justify your actions. I can accept the limitations you and your church may have. But do not use it to harm other people.

As I wrote on my blog that after creating Man, God realize that Man needs a suitable partner than he saw every where, everyone of his creature but He did not find any.

Do you really believe God could be so clueless? Sounds like God was proposing bestiality until Adam rejected it. Dude, this is a mythical creation story (the meaning of the name Adam should be your first clue). It's a parable not science. If you read both creation stories in Genesis you can see they are different. Which one is the infallible one? To me the first creation story is miraculous in that ancient men saw God's work very close to the wonders of creation that science has revealed. Does science threaten God? Not one bit. It simply shows that God is much bigger than human minds can grasp.

Why not at that moment God created another man for his partner?
but not, Because he was looking for the stuitable partner for man then He created women which was suitable for the man.

The point of the story is to explain how people came to be, not an explanation of God's perfect family as you stretch it to be, same sex examples would have been irrelevant. But a woman is not a suitable companion for a gay man. A man is not a suitable companion for a lesbian. Even God sees this and I thank him every day for the wonderful loving man he has brought into my life as my suitable companion.

Than he said to both of them that go and fruitfull. How can a couple of same sex can be fruitful? Never? Never?

So procreation is the ONLY reason to marry? So you recommend annulments for barren couples? You would refuse to marry older couples? And how do you reconcile that both Paul and Jesus said it was better not to marry?

More, you seem to think this is the 11th commandment. It's a blessing not a demand. Being married is a covenant between two people to commit to each other, to share their lives and spirits, yet you would demean the covenant to a contract to produce babies. You turn marriage into base animal actions - reproduction.

Further, I suspect you don't know the Bible as well as you think. on your web site you state...

God only blessed sex within the committed marriage relationship of a man and a woman.

You've obviously ignored how God blessed Abraham's bastard son Ishmael.

You imply that I reinterpret scripture to find God's approval of homosexuality. Not exactly. I already know God approves of homosexuality. I search for the truth in the scripture so that Christianity remains relevant to me. If I buy your reasoning, I'll just reject the church. Your version of Christianity offers nothing to me. I must deny my love for the man in my life while I watch self-righteous Christians flaunt their love and tell me how to live my life.

More, I would reject the real work God has chosen for me to do. No, I will not do that. God sends me as one of his messengers to speak the words he gives to me. It does not improve my standing to debate with you. I only do it because God compels me to and will not let me rest until my work is done.

I say it is you that is interpreting the scriptures to suit your personal beliefs. You quote Leviticus to me yet you probably never use Leviticus for any other use. You take a letter of Paul to a specific group of people addressing a specific event and make it a universal condemnation. You probably still think Sodom was destroyed because of homosexuality regardless of what Isaiah & Jesus said.

How many gay friends do you have? I'm not talking about gay people you know, but how many truly consider you their friend? How many invite you to dinner and enjoy conversing with you? While I am a bit far from you to have you to dinner, I would invite you to converse. All I ask is that you put away your scriptural dogma and speak to me from your heart.

I found it amazing that you spent many more words talking about homosexuality than you did about grace. Is that truly where your priorities are? I think if you listen, God may be calling on you to stop persecuting his gay children. And if you think Jesus didn't talk about homosexuals then you'd better research what the word eunuch meant when Jesus used it. (It's even on Wikipedia if you can't find it other places.) And I don't doubt for one moment that Jesus was ignorant of its meaning when he spoke it. Adds a whole new possibility to Matthew 19:12 that Jesus may be telling us 2,000 years ago that gay people are born that way. It's a lot more logical than assuming he's talking about men born without testicles (a statistical non-event).

I am your neighbor, Joshua. I am hurting from the persecution of the church. Yet you pass by on the other side of the road. Leave the judgment to God and be my friend. Tell me why you really truly are uncomfortable with gays and I will dialog with you. Quit hiding behind the Bible and be honest with me as I have been with you.

I hope some day the church as a whole can become a force for social justice as Jesus saw it instead of always being the last bastion of bigotry and prejudice.

This is obviously a subject close to my heart and my relationship with God. I celebrate that you and I are men of God and recognize our unity in Christ even though we disagree on certain things. I do not mean this as an attack but as a challenge to you. God's work for me, spreading God's grace and love to gays, is formidable because of the persecution of the church. But I welcome this cross that I bear and his strength on my path.

I just ask you to remember, Joshua, that people are more important than scriptures.

Yours in Christ,

Scott

Jesus and the Eunuchs

2006-06-17T10:17:00.000-07:00

I keep getting drawn back to Matthew 19: 10-12. Jesus has jsut responded to a track question by the religious leaders with a truthful, but thought provoking answer. He says the ever quoted phrase, "What God has joined together, man should not separate." This is often used to indicate that Jesus was anti-divorce. But that's not what he says. He says that God can join two people together and only God should separate two people. To say that marriage is always and only an act of God and divorce is always and only an act of man is presumptuous and irrational. I do believe God divorces couples. I truly believe God blessed my divorce. In fact it was his idea!!

Now about eunuchs. During Jesus day there, a eunuch was anyone not interested in women. Today we only think of castrated eunuchs. But homosexuals were commonly called eunuchs. The third type of eunuch is someone like Christ himself who forsake relations with a female to strengthen their relationship with God. Modern priests could be considered similar eunuchs. There was never an assumption that a man could be sterile - all fertility problems were blamed on ibarren women. And a man born without testicals is so rare as to be considered non-existent.

So here's the way Matthew 19: 10-12 reads:

10 The disciples said to Him, "If the relationship of the man with his wife is like this, it is better not to marry."
11But He said to them, "Not all men can accept this statement, but only those to whom it has been given.
12"For there are eunuchs who were born that way from their mother's womb; and there are eunuchs who were made eunuchs by men; and there are also eunuchs who made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. He who is able to accept this, let him accept it."

Let me suggest a modern interpretation of what Jesus was saying understanding eunuchs the way society did.

The disciples said to him, “…it must be better not to marry.”

Jesus said, “Some men need to have a wife. But not everyone can accept the traditional male role. For there are men born without interest in women such as homosexuals, there are men who have been castrated by other men, and there are men who decide to remain celibate to bring them a closer relationship with God.”

I really believe Jesus is acknowledging that gays are born not made. And, the DaVinci Code notwithstanding, this is probably also an answer to the endless challenges Jesus likely faced by being unmarried.

Links to my Heart

2006-06-17T05:26:00.000-07:00

I know I should write here more often. Sometimes though I just need to get fired up. Bruce linked me to a religious web site condemning homosexuality - (nothing new there, lol). It was full of scriptural refereneces typical of such sites. It's funny how the modern pharisees can analyze scriptures and discern meaning until they come to homosexuality and then it's - see right here in black and white - no interpretation neccessary.

Then there was a phrase that struck me as odd. "God only blessed sex within the committed marriage relationship of a man and a woman." And I had to take a step back and ask if these people had ever really read the Bible. You don't even leave the book of Genesis to see God blessing the son of Abraham and his slave girl.

"And as for Ishmael, I have heard you: I will surely bless him; I will make him fruitful and will greatly increase his numbers. He will be the father of twelve rulers, and I will make him into a great nation."

Yep, pretty sure God hates bastards and condemns adulterers.

And neither Jesus nor Paul condemned polygamy which was common then. Paul only said that if you were a church leader, you should limit yourself with one wife. Of course Paul also said we shouldn't marry. Only if we can't control our lust, he said.

And I find it a stretch to say that because there's a myth about the first man and woman, that's the only model of relationships there is. There's also a story about the Israelites slaughtering every man, woman, child and beast which perhaps should be the ideal model for warfare, eh?

They also like to quote Paul writing only to the church at Corinth "neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor male prostitutes nor homosexual offenders nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God" and forget everything but homosexuals. Actually Paul was refering to temple prostitution common at Corinth here, but we conveniently broaden this to include God's directive to homos.

I never see this scripture used to berate Ken Lay and corporate fat cats. I've never heard it quoted against the slanderers at the AFA and 700 Club who knowingly spread lies about gay people. I have never heard this scripture quoted against the swindlers at the helm of this country who lied to start a war. And isn't the word "televangelist" almost synonymous with "swindler?" Plus in Paul's day even holding hands in public was sexually immoral.

From a non-U.S. perspective this whole nation is greedy. And I haven't met a man who really doesn't desire a blowjob - which if you recall is included in the definition of sodomy even if you're married.

So I got a bit ticked and sent the following...

Blah, blah, blah. Same stuff I've heard since I was 6 years old. Where's the love and empathy? Where is trying to understand the struggles of your brother? Being gay is what I am, not what I do. I lived the life of a strict heterosexual for 40 years but all the time I was fully completely gay.

Thankfully, I finally saw God's patient message he was speaking to me and I rejected the shame and embraced the glory of his creation and the wonderful gifts he has given me. And I took on the real ministry he asks me to do.

Since you are a fundamentalist, you've already decided anything I say is wrong, but I'll say it anyway. The Bible is a work of man (complete with man's prejudices and faults) trying to describe their personal revelation from God. Inspired? Yes. Truth filled? Wonderfully. God's verbatim dictate? Hardly. God walks and speaks to us personally today, just as he did the writers of 2,000 years ago. The words can only be brought back to life through the Holy Spirit. There is truth there but it comes not from the printed words but from the spirit inside us.

How nice it must be to point at the words and say "See, I'm right." You are a modern Pharasee standing proudly on your dogma and religious convictions when Jesus is calling you to be compassionate. You probably believe in loving the sinner but hating the sin. I ask why is the church advocating ANY form of hate? And besides it doesn't feel very loving from my end.

What if God told you that he made gay people and wants them to live happy fulfilled lives and that you are misinterpreting scripture? I believe He is. But you persist in your adherance to male dominated religious control over society and qoute scripture without Spirit.

I have to sadly laugh when I dialog with people like yourself. I speak from my heart about my relationship with God and they send me a scripture reference - like that's all there is to being a Christian - quoting scripture. Here's one you might want to pray about - 1 Corinthians 13:1 "If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but do not have love, I have become a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal."

I cry for all the gay people you righteously cast out of your churches. Most have rejected any relationship with God thanks to rhetoric like yours. I'm sorry for the hardness of your heart and pray that God's truth be revealed to you. I am sorry that you see God as small, petty & vindictive. I believe that God's compassion can forgive the shortcomings of both of us.

If you are a fundamentalist or anyone else who condemns homosexuality reading this...

I challenge you to speak from your heart and quit linking to scriptures as if that is all there is about spreading the Good News. Yes, Jesus quoted scripture - rarely. And be honest for a change. Tell me exactly what you think about gay people. Tell me how disgusting you think it is. I know that's at the root of your thoughts. Or maybe you find it something desirable and are fighting your lust. Whatever is in your heart, I truly understand. And far from making you less human, honesty makes you more of a child of God. Only then can true dialog happen.

Satan is called the father of lies and lies, deception and omission nearly destroyed me and the people I love. They were a wall between me and others, between me and God. So give up the deception.

Tell me what you really think when you see two men holding hands, tell me what you really think when you see two 60 year old men kissing as they greet each other at the airport. Tell me what you really think about the gay choir director. Tell me what you really feel when you think that there are gay men sharing your locker room or at the urinal next to you. Tell me what you really feel when you think of two middle aged men in bed together. Tell me what you really feel when your son or daughter, brother or sister, or other relative confides in you that they are gay. Tell me what you really feel when you see pictures of happily married same sex couples. In my journal, I have poured out my heart. Share yours with me as well. Only then can we get past the dogma and learn to love each other as siblings in God's family.

And while we're at it, explain why your opinion of what the Bible means is more important than my opinion about what the Bible means. Where is there any Good News in your shallow words? Where is ther any hope? Where have you walked in my shoes and found a relationship with God while feeding the hogs? When did you ever stand in the darkness with only God as a companion and even then ask yourself if were truly alone and forsaken? I am the modern leper.

If you're just going to quote scripture, save your breath. I have studied them since I could read and know the clobber passages back to the Greek. I call upon those who would condemn me by quoting Leviticus and 1 Corinthians to quit hiding behind scriptures, quit beating me with the Bible and start speaking honestly - from their hearts.

An Open Letter to Anonymous

2006-03-24T12:00:00.000-08:00

An Open Letter to Anonymous

First I want to thank you for your note and I really do feel that you sent it in love and concern. I love you as well and genuinely welcome all dialog as I believe it enriches our lives. I would love to get to know you better. Are you a man or a woman? Have you grown up in the church? Do you have a spouse and/or children? What struggles have you faced in your life?

Second, I want to make it clear to all who read this that my writing is my witness to my relationship with God and Jesus. It reflects my evolution and thoughts as I struggle to be the man God wants me to be. It is not easy and often places me at odds with friends and allies. But it is what God expects from me and it is his strength that keeps me going. I don’t expect my path to apply to anyone but me. But if I plant seeds of thought, I consider my work fulfilled.

I acknowledge how difficult, perhaps even impossible for a straight person to truly understand what a gay person feels. While I convincingly played the part of a straight man for most of my life, it was impossible for me to truly understand the core feelings and thoughts that drive straight people. So I welcome readers who try to understand me and I try to be patient with their struggle to do so.

I also understand the struggles of my fellow Christians to embrace my relationship with Jesus and God. I have found kindred souls in my life, but I more often interact with those who find my thought process askew. It is a constant struggle to maintain ties with the church as a gay man and ties with my gay friends as a Christian. It is easiest to stay closeted – as a gay man and as a Christian.

So back to Anonymous’ note. As I read through your note, I find myself in agreement with you on most points. Yet I sense we differ on definitions and interpretation. So here’s my 2 cents worth. And to those who accuse me of rationalizing, I ask, what are you doing with your rational mind?

While some people who profess to be Christian are definitely not, I feel that most Christians are probably more “beginner’ Christians. I have no way of telling other than by what they say and do and that is not a good measure. From where I stand, they follow what they have been taught without spending much time looking deeper into their faith. Why do we believe what we believe after all? Because the Bible says so, is a common response. Well, there’s enough stuff in the Bible to unsettle anyone’s convictions, which is why people so rarely read it.

I think a life in Christ calls us to constantly look at our thoughts and actions to determine whether we are being as loving as Christ calls us to be. I firmly believe the core of Christianity is love – love for God, love for each other and love for ourselves. And from 42 years of painful experience, I discovered that I could not truly love others until I learned to love myself as God loves me. I thought I loved people, but now I know different. It’s very much a work in progress, but being honest is a fundamental step.

I also believe that following Christ means listening to his still small voice – which can be a very demanding voice at times – and doing what we are asked to do.

Many times in my life, God has called me, quite insistently usually, to do something I don’t want to do, to go places I never thought to go and to talk to people I may not choose to talk to. In one event, I was awake half the night pushing back, not wanting to make waves with the person God wanted me to speak to. I finally agreed to do it if God would show me the right time. At that moment I felt at peace and really practically forgot about it. But a short time later, that time was made clear and I was able to do what God had asked quite easily.

Pastor Steve told me recently that we don’t control our own lives. And based on events like this in my life, I generally agree. God has been most insistent with me at times compelling me to do things. And at times equally compelling me to not take action.

So I firmly believe Christ leads and we follow. I’m not sure what your meaning is when you say a Christian is “someone who resembles Christ.” To me that means being loving, of choosing love above all else, even my own religious convictions. I read Mark’s witness about the religious leaders of Christ’s day challenging him for ‘violating’ the religious rules and I think about those Christians today chastising their siblings in Christ for ‘violating’ current religious convictions.

I hope you aren’t implying we must achieve a sinless perfection only Jesus could accomplish. To me such inward focusing is selfish and counterproductive. Jesus blood has already cleansed us and to say we need to take further action to accomplish that is pride. What I hear Christ saying is to forget worrying about our own salvation and get to work. “If you love me, feed my sheep,” Christ says. Much more productive than sackcloth and gnashing of teeth.

I agree that Christ came to save us from hell. I think we probably agree that hell represents separation from God. I sense that we disagree on how souls get to hell – does God sentence us to hell or does God resign himself to allowing us to exist in hell? And in this question there is the definition of limits to God’s compassion.

Here I look at the compassion of man. We at times show great compassion, great forgiveness. We let criminals off. We as Americans pride ourselves in preferring to let a guilty person go free than wrongly convict an innocent. And I ask how could God be any less compassionate?

So it seems to me, hell is an isolation and damnation we consign ourselves to more so than God casting down sentencing. Is hell real? Most definitely, and much scarier than we can imagine. But if we allow God to save us, I believe God will.

You wrote “if anyone will repent from ALL their sins... He will save them.” I believe in grace and God’s unconditional love. When Christ tells us he died to forgiven our sins, I believe that the forgiveness is already done for any sin I have or ever will commit. I am forgiven regardless of whether I repent or not. For me, repentance allows me to accept that forgiveness, for if I don’t acknowledge my shortcomings, I cannot forgive myself and allow Christ to show me he’s already forgiven me.

I look at my role as a father. I love my son. Nothing he has done causes me to love him. Nothing he can ever do will cause me to stop loving him. How can God’s love for me be anything less than my love for my son? I have already forgiven my son for any grievance against me, past or future. How can God’s forgiveness be any less than my feeble human form?

I suspect part of our disagreement comes our definition of sin. Paul does a pretty thorough job of making sure no one comes through reading his letters without some realization that we are sinners. If anyone does, they are deluding themselves. But what really is a sin? Is killing a sin? Are our brave young people in Iraq sinning? Is greed a sin? Is not giving as much as we possible can a form of greed? Is living in a bigger house than we need a sin? Is driving a more expensive car a sin? While some would answer ‘yes’ to some or all of these questions, I have to answer ‘it depends.’

My father, a retired pastor defined sin as ANYTHING that separates us from God. I think this is a comprehensive definition. Sin is anything that causes us shame before God. And shame before God is perhaps the most dangerous emotion we can feel as we want to hide from God. Original sin is not sex, or the quest for knowledge or following Satan – it was shame, I believe. And the shovelfuls of shame we heap upon each other is more likely to drive us out of God’s presence than into his arms.

For 42 years of my life, I lived in shame. And while I was a fervent acting church member, my shame drove a wedge between God and me. It came very close to causing me to reject Christianity all together as so many GLBT people have done.

I’m not sure if you are implying that because I am a proud homosexual, I cannot be a Christian. One writer asserted that. First, I don’t believe being a sinner, even an unrepentant one, prevents a person from being a Christian. Christianity is not an exclusive club of the self-perceived sinless. It IS a virtual place where all those struggling to know God better and live in his grace can find kinship and support.

Jesus never demanded perfection. Even among those closest to him, he had to often bring back the stray sheep. I am thankful Christ comes after me when I go astray, but going astray doesn’t make me less his sheep.

There are some basic things that I know about myself. Sexually, I cannot become anything but a gay man. I cannot alter what my soul finds attractive and desirable. I cannot dictate who my soul falls in love with. I accept that God the creator of all, created me this way and I thank him for his creation.

But that brings up the second question I have to ask myself. Does God want me to embrace my homosexuality or deny it? I do believe God expects me to control my sexual urges just like anyone else. I believe God expects me to act out of love for myself and for those I am attracted to.

So then the question is whether I am called to live a celibate life. I believe people are called to celibacy, sometimes for their entire life, sometimes for portions of their lives. Most Catholic priests feel a call from God to be celibate. Paul called on all Christians to refrain from marriage if possible. Many, many lay people as well feel such a call during parts of their lives. But I believe this to be a personal call from God to us as individuals not an across the board dictate based on a specific sentence written by Paul or any other writer of scripture.

You imply that I am a fake Christian because I claim to know Christ. I recently heard a quote that speaks to this...

“The opposite of faith is not doubt; the opposite of faith is certainty.”

I hope I don’t portray that I have God and Christ all figured out, because I don’t. I struggle to understand so many things about God. I don’t understand how God can command us not to kill, but then instruct the Hebrews to slaughter men, women, children and animals. I struggle with Paul instructing women not to teach. I struggle with Jesus’ instructions to the wealthy man.

I struggle with why God made me gay. I struggle with what he expects me to do with my life. I struggle with how I should interact with the gay men in my life. I struggle with how I should interact with fellow Christians. I ask for guidance in how I live my life. I don’t know why God selected me for this burden – life would have been so much easier if I had been in-love with my former wife.

I don’t know if I have things right and this is why I constantly re-examine what I believe and why I believe it. This is why God sends people like you to me, to make me think through it all again and again and again.

We read the same scripture. We ask the same Holy Spirit to guide us. We repent of our respective sins. We pray to the same God for enlightenment. All I witness is my struggle to understand God to figure out and do what he wants me to do.

You say my concept of Christianity is wrong. Is this merely because I discount the literalism of Paul and Leviticus? I beg you to explain how my belief that Christ is loving and forgiving and inclusive is wrong. You seem to think God loves me in spite of my being gay. I contend he loves me in part because I am gay. And when I disappoint him as I have and will continue to do, I’m pretty sure it’s for reasons different than you would propose.

I do have to ask you why this is such an important issue for you? Can you honestly say that you are opposed to homosexuality purely from a scriptural basis? Can you honestly say that a personal disgust does not in any way, shape or form color your interpretation? Can you honestly admit that perhaps there are other interpretations of the scriptures? Can you admit that you agree with some of the things I say?

I can tell you that if you are trying to help save souls, this won’t do it. Daily I deal with gay men and women who, faced with this brand of love, left the church. And most threw God out with the bathwater.

If you sincerely want to reach out to LGBT people, get to know them first. Understand their lives, their problems, their experiences, their dreams. You didn’t ask one question about who I am. You showed no genuine interest in me as a child of God. You didn’t ask me what my life is like, whether I have a church family or what my life experience has been like. To summarize what I heard from your message – “I love you. You’re wrong. Change or go to hell. But Jesus and I love you.”

Imagine yourself on the receiving end of that little statement. Makes you just wanna run right to a church service and publicly repent, eh? There’ll be a time you can discuss salvation, but I recommend avoiding it on the first email. If you prefer a private forum, email me at SLR616 at hotmail.com.

I wholly agree that Jesus came not to condemn the world but to save it and that he seeks those who are lost. I am glad he saved me from a superficial faith and a life of lies. I try every day to make him proud of me and not live in shame. I pray for his courage when I am all too often weak.

You say you love me. Does that mean we might have dinner in each other’s homes? That you’ll watch Brokeback Mountain and share my tears just as I would cry with you watching Left Behind? And would we play cards and laugh together? And later in front of a fire, would we discuss our faith together while sipping a glass of wine?

This is what I do with those who love me. Would we do the same?

Enlightenment All Around

2006-02-20T09:25:00.000-08:00

One of the joys of faith is talking about it. Hearing other people’s insights and interpretations helps me grow in my own faith and helps me see another perspective of God through another person’s eyes. Usually it’s little things, though often a little thing can be quite enlightening. In fact, I believe this is one of the many ways God speaks to us today, through other people.

For example, one of my co-workers was relating to me something he had learned in a Bible study about the time of Moses.

“Do you know why God had to send 12 plagues?” he asked. I of course thought of the age old tradition that it took that many to soften Pharaoh’s heart.

“It also took that much misfortune to convince the Hebrews to pack up and leave,” he added. Of course! I thought, the light bulb going on. In fact, perhaps that’s the reason there’s little corroborating evidence in secular history. It wasn’t so much to convince Pharaoh as it was to convince the masses of people to leave their relative comfort and safety in Egypt. And it’s human nature that when they wrote their history, they managed to paint themselves as nothing but willing to follow God into the wilderness. Suddenly the story makes more sense knowing human nature and the way I suspect God really works.

Another “ah ha” came from Pastor Steve in talking about the Pharisees and Sadducees. During Jesus time the Pharisees were the liberal arm of Judaism. By the time the gospels were written, they had become the conservatives. The much maligned Pharisees at least were the ones who came out and talked with Jesus.

Now, God and I have a relationship where we can laugh together. In that spirit, God has often spoken to me through fortune cookies. Just because the message is typed on a slip of paper inside a cookie, the message’s pertinence to my prayers at the time gave me no doubt who the author really was.

Once when I was feeling frustrated about my personal live, I received several messages from numerous sources (yes, at least two fortune cookies) that told me to be patient. But humor aside, most of the insight I have about God comes from other people,

Some of my favorite and definitely most memorable conversations were with people who saw God radically different than I do. I have had enlightening talks with atheists, numerous fellow progressives, a Muslim, many Catholics, several conservative Bible literalists, charismatics and the occasional fundamentalist.

The hardest people to talk with are born again Christians and fundamentalists. Born again Christians have typically experienced the spiritual high of finding Jesus and are often locked in a never ending crusade to find new religious highs to feed their spiritual addiction. If you can’t help them get a “fix” they often belittle you.

Fundamentalists are difficult to talk with because they have usually have a predetermined mindset that they are right and I am wrong. So it’s impossible to really talk intelligently with someone who isn’t seriously listening to you.

Most of the time, though, my talks are with fellow Christians trying to live a good life, trying to love God and the rest of the world. To me this is a prime way that the Holy Spirit works through us. Whether it be a minister, a fellow Christian or sometimes even someone antagonistic, God can enlighten us through their words. The Jewish faith uses friendly argument as a key tool to deepening their faith.

If you’re frustrated waiting for God to speak with a voice like thunder, you probably need to listen to his small whispers all around you. Or pay close attention to that next fortune cookie you break open.

Constraining God

2006-01-05T06:44:00.000-08:00

I was reading Al Franken's new book "The Truth - With Jokes" and one part dealt with how G W Bush manipulated the religious right through, amoung other things, their fear of gay people. In thinking about the (very tired) argument from conservative and Bible literalist Christians that God couldn't create gays because the Bible condemns gays, I realized that these people are constraining God. They are limiting God's infinite power to only that which was written in the Bible. By believing the Bible is inerrant, not even God can step outside it's bounds.

My father the minister is correct when he describes this as a form of idolatry, putting the Bible above God's speaking to us today.

The Rev. Jim Turner wrote...

I believe the problem came when Paul, and others who followed him, tried to put their experience of Jesus into words to share with others. Sigmund Freud was right! Human kind has created God in our image. The ancient Hebrew writers, the Apostle Paul and the other Christian writers tried to describe their experiences of God and of Jesus, with the only knowledge and language they had available. The God described became a "super sized" human. For too many centuries now Christians have continued to describe, even believe in a God that thinks, speaks, and acts like a super natural human person.

The writers of the Bible were inspired people, people who had seen God, who had experienced God and who had personal deep relationships with God. But they were only able to describe God in their own terms. It was a limitation we struggle with today. I cannot adequately describe my own relationship with God, though I try.

It begs the question that if God did dictate the words of the Bible to the authors, why are the words limited to those of it's writers. Oh, I know, that's God's will and we are not to question why, our is but to do and die. If I were God, I'd be creating a lot more interesting people than those who just obey. How dull an eternity for God. But my point is that if the writers were writing God's direct words, they would not have been constrained by the language of their day.

To me, God is not just an entity that created the universe, God is, in part, the life force of the universe, the integral vibrancy of everything that is. I think that is why I find God's presence so much in nature. The rocks and hills themselves will sing the praise of God because they are inherently connected to God, not as an inanimate object created and set aside by a creator, but an integral part of God alive with the energy that drives the universe.

Everything is not God, but God is present in everything. And rather than limiting God to the capabilities of humans, perhaps we would be better served at discovering the untapped potential of our humanity through the unchaining God from our small thinking.

One of my favorite quotes came from Pastor Bob...

"I choose not to limit God."

A Poem - Save Me From Heaven, Lord

2005-12-23T06:19:00.000-08:00

Yes, I’m a bit depressed. I’ve been surfing the gay news media again – that’s never good. Which led me to the AFA (BTW thanks to Ford for finally rejecting the manipulative AFA bigots). This is poetry not necessarily all experience folks.

So here’s the message I am hearing.

God hates me.
I am a pervert
A deviant
Queer
Fag – said with spit.
I am unnatural – violating the laws of nature.

But Jesus can fix me.
Yet he hasn’t.
Despite my prayers & faith.

We can make you straight,
they say.
Embrace celibacy
Find women sexy.
Or at least pretend to.
Perhaps they can make me like beets as well.
And plaid pants.

I can be like them.
They promise with Kum-ba-ya
Even if I despise them.
Can’t I see how God has blessed them.
It’s enough if I just act like them.
Blessed saint of conformity.

My parents don’t understand.
I do not fit their plan for their life.
Their plan for MY life
Do not play the part they assumed I would.

People tell me all I have to do is choose.
They who made no choice.
I am belittled.
Mocked
By these experts about my life.
They seem to know better than I what it's about.
When did I choose – I don’t remember?
Do they think that because I chose the red toy truck
I damned my soul for eternity?

It’s so clear to them who speak with the voice of authority.
They know me so well – better than I must know myself.
I must be a vile creature.
Unfit to interact
Unfit to parent
My gayness may rub off.
Unfit to teach or preach or lead or fight.
Unfit to love.

Imprisoning me is justified.
Killing me is justified.
Tying me to a Wyoming fence post
As a sign to others.
Dismembering me and tossing me in the river
Is understandable
Merely because I think you are a nice handsome man
and ask you on a date.

I mock their weddings,
they shriek
With my desire to express my love.
They frown at my joy
and disapprove that I dare hold my lover’s hand.
They deny me ways to express my love,
to share my life.
They deny me the right to ease my partner's pain
And care for him.
To raise our children.
To decide on his behalf.
All in the name
Of what is just and right.

I will destroy what marriage is all about.
Do they mean the male domination of women?
I look for role models.
People to show me the way
Not Exodus
But freedom and love.
How can I love myself if I am so unlovable?
How can I live with such a vile person as myself?
I’m clearly going to hell.
Everyone tells me.
Often.
And loudly.

Yet can hell be worse than the eternal damnation of life?
Can hell be worse than scanning the dark shadows of the street
Wary of good Christian men.
Heaven as portrayed to me looks like hell to me.

Since the dawn of time.
God has hated me.
So the Bible says.
As a child I was told that Jesus loves me.
Now I hear in the bullhorn that
God hates fags.
AIDS is God’s curse, they say.
I bring AIDS to the innocents they say.
I am not a victim – I volunteered they say.
Even though he waited thousands of years to inflict this so called curse.
Perhaps Hitler was God’s curse too.
For killing countless gays.

At least
drugs
alcohol
sex
food
priesthood
masochism
violence.
masks the pain.

Come sweet damnation and eternal oblivion.
Save me Lord, from those who would save my soul.

Tis the Season

2005-12-23T06:17:00.000-08:00

In a wierd quirk that's the sign of our twisted times, whenever I hear a store clerk wish me a Merry Christmas, I wonder 'what did she mean by that?' Before a few weeks ago, I would not have thought anything about it. Whether it be Seasons' Greetings, Happy Holidays, Merry Christmas or Happy Hannuka, I enjoyed everyone being in a festive mood.

But thanks to those miserable perfect people who intollerantly demand that it only be Christmas and that if it isn't you are destroying this once great Christian nation under God, you filthy heathens you!!!!

Ahem, well, now I wonder, what did they mean by saying Merry Christmas. Are they one of those high & mighty souls wanting to enforce regligious purity on me? Well, we all know what that does to a testy gay badger now, don't we?

For me I'm celebrating Christmas, a time important to my faith whether or not the whole creation story happened at all, which also has secular meanings with adopted pagan traditions. I appreciate the Jewish meanings for the season which are foundations for some of the things I believe. And I allso respect and celebrate with those for which the season has no religious meaning.

My advice to those who think this is a serious moral battle they are waging - get over yourselves!!! No boycotts, no morality police, no religious propaganda, no fundamentalist governement ever made people really change their belief.

Dancing on Heads of Pins

2005-12-15T08:14:00.000-08:00

The battle over Christmas is almost ludicrous if it weren’t representative of a deeper dysfunction in religion today. All the saber-rattling and threats over using Christmas vs. Holidays masks deeper schisms, schisms that the gay community has been aware of for decades. There’s a religious intolerance afoot and a very un-Christian hatred brewing. I heard one comment that no one ever bought a “holiday tree.” Well, actually 1500 years ago or so, they did. Long before the tree was claimed for Christmas by the Roman Catholics, it was a pagan symbol. To see people outraged at society robbing Christmas of it’s symbols is outrageously ironic to me. I heard that early Puritans even made the celebration of Christmas illegal in some communities.

But this all begs the question, what does all this bluster hope to accomplish? Will Target’s use of “Christmas” make the world more Christian? And is the world being more Christian a good thing? Will it bring more souls to Christ? Will it even make Christians individually more faithful? When did intolerance become a “Christian” value to so many religious people?

There are other ways to make the world a better place, a more accepting and loving place. I was happy to see that Ford made a clear statement embracing its support of the GLBT community and outright rejecting any appearance of kowtowing to the AFA which had demanded a boycott of the company for placing ads in gay themed newspapers. I’m sure Jesus would be so proud of the AFA bully tactics (NOT!). It’s hard to even begin to imagine Jesus bullying anyone. He didn’t even advocate the boycotting of Roman, the political tyrant of his day.

NPR is running an ad for a radio program Sunday evening. The host talks about how the portayal of God by so many as the worst tyrant ever. His touted judgments of eternal damnation make all other human persecutions pale by comparison. What is Hitler’s murder of 6 million Jews and millions of others compared to God’s claimed damnation of billions upon billions of people? Hussein’s atrocities are insignificant compared to the rapturous murder that some call upon God to perform.

And there are so many who are sure they are in the group that will be spared, be they Muslins, Jews, Southern Baptist or the uber exclusive Jehovah’s Witnesses. That’s a lot of confidence to expect from a mass murderer on an unprecedented scale.

And why do they claim God is such a tyrant? Discipline? To punish those who won’t step in line? To reward the few through the eternal torture of the majority? Some odd sense of judgment that would condemn sinners all to the same dismal fate? An ethnic cleansing? Righteous outrage? A venting of omnipotent anger? An opportunity to brag that 'I told you so!'

Debating over who will go to hell and who will go to heaven is probably even less productive than trying to determine who will survive a nuclear war.

For me, I wish hell upon no one. I pray to a merciful God to be magnanimous with his mercy. I believe he is. I see hell as not a place God sends us to, but a place where we go to escape God. It is self-imposed because God cannot save us there. He will not drag us out of hell if that’s where we choose to be.

Yet, to those who desire to live with God, he will welcome them gladly, and I don’t think it matters to him all that much how you find your way, but that you find the truth, the word - Christ as described so beautifully by John. And I’ll leave that for later.

So I suggest we quit quibbling about which of our brothers or sisters are our father’s favorite. And I suggest we quit squabbling over which pagan symbol belongs to God or which banner at Wally World is more holy and remember that the season is supposed to be about peace, not conflict, unity not divisiveness.

May our gift to each other not be mere tolerance, but full loving acceptance of every person God created.

The Bible as Parable

2005-12-07T08:35:00.000-08:00

Pastor Steve said some interesting things Monday that got me thinking. He talked about how teaching in Biblical times were by parable - a story intended to get the student to think about truth. A story that allows God to provide the allegories to the student. One of the taboos for rabbis was to give their own interpretation of the story. Jesus did on occassion but only to his disciples.

Today we learn through transfer of facts. We are taught was is and what is not - that 1 + 1 =2. That 'ran' is the past tense of 'run'. That chlorophyll makes leaves green. That the earth revolves around the sun. We run into all kinds of problems when we deal with the study of ideas and philosophy. The whole debate about intelligent design is really about how to handle concepts in a world of facts.

I thought that this concept really describes how I view the entire Bible. The Bible is a parable. The question is, is it's meaning literal or figurative. Just like any parable, there are the words which tell a story and it can be interpreted at that level. The farmer sowed his seeds and some fell on the road. You shall not covet. Clear consise statements that convey a meaning.

As in a parable, we recognize that Jesus was talking about more than just farming. Hopefully we realize that God was talking about more than coveting. In my opinion, to just read the Bible as literal is to miss seeing the greater meaning behind the story, to fail to let God speak to us through the Bible.

It's very easy to take someone's statement and believe it or not. But to dig into it for the truth is much more difficult. Yet we do it every day. Anyone who has sat on a jury has been forced to find truth beyond the stories of each side. When we look at politics and world affairs, we try to determine the real truth behind the stories we hear on the news.

Yet when it comes to the Bible, some say that what it says it the end of it's meaning. That you are blaspheming when you dare try to find a deeper truth that what is on the surface. I recall one man I had a dialog with a few years ago who claimed, correctly I agree, that the Bible does not mention unconditional love. Yet I know I am not alone in seeing in the Bible the truth of God's unconditional love for each of us.

Most everyone I know, even self-admitted Biblical literalists do not take the entire Bible literally. Yet they are selective about which scriptures to take literally and which to interpret as parables. They will say that Jesus instructions to the rich man to give all he had to the poor was not literal, yet Paul's condemnation of male-male sex is. They will dismiss Paul's admonition against getting married as parable, but declare parts of Leviticus as literal.

I have difficulty in understanding how we are supposed to pick and choose. What is the criteria? If it affects me it's not literal seems to be the standard. I contend that it's either all literal or all parable.

Now this doesn't mean a parable isn't an actual story. But the purpose is not to convey the story, but to create wisdom.

There are plenty of people who will go to great pains to debunk the claim that Jesus actually lives. To me, it doesn't matter what they can or cannot prove, the inherent truth of Jesus's ministry does not change.

I have seen people become extremely distressed when their belief in the "facts" are challenged. But I contend that truth does not depend on a compendium of facts. And the Bible is not a history book nor a science book. It is a book of truth given to us by God exactly the way he wanted it to.

Just remember Jesus never once claimed to be the Messiah and God incarnate. Yet most Christians believe this without question.

I'll close with a parable of my own. There was a woman who every day walked along the seashore and marvelled at the sea and it's many moods. She admired the power of the surf, the colors of the sunset and the scent of the spray. She picked up the shells that the sea placed before her feet. She watched the crabs skitter across the beach and the gulls as they screetched and dove at the water.

And it was beautiful.

Until one day the woman's friend invited her to go scuba diving and told her of a miraculous world of coral reefs and wildly colored fish and dangerous sharks. She told of the wonders of the deep, of starfish and manta rays and creatures that glowed in the dark. Beneath the surface of the sea were shipwrecks of Spanish galleons remarkably preserved for centuries with treasures untold within their hulls.

And the woman laughed gently at her friend and said she must be imagining things. For she had been watching the sea all her life and had never seen such unbelievable visions.

And she continued to laugh at her friend as she walked down the beach and threw a clam shell into the roaring surf.

Renewal

2005-12-06T06:52:00.000-08:00

I apologize for not writing here much, but that's going to change. I am renewing my commitment to capturing how the holy Spirit speaks to me. This is my witness about how God is active in my life. We've had a pretty tight relationship throughout my life. He was patient to the extreme while I wasted time in the closet. But he knew that while not a desireable place for me, it was a safe haven during the worst ravages of AIDS, and during the time of my lowest self-esteem.

God has guided me through my coming out, through my relationship transformation with my wonderful soul mate Nancy who spent 20 patient years being married to me and has gone to great pains to maintain a relationship with me after the dissolusion of our marriage.

As I questioned the deepest tenents of my faith, God sat with me and patiently helped me understand his will for me, his creation of me and his happiness that I have finally rejected the shame that had been slowly destroying me.

He has led me into my knew life and taught me to learn to love myself by bringing special people into my life. He knows my deepest desires and wants to make me happy, but in his own time, despite my impatience.

God has rewarded me when I did not deserve it. He has loved me when I was unlovable. He continues to guide me to become a better man and to reach out to both those who have been mislead into rejecting him and to those who believe they have God firmly understood.

I am the first to admit that I don't know it all, that what is true for me, is not necessarily for anyone else. All I know for sure is that if someone claims to be a keeper of the inerrant truth of God, they are wrong. No man can wholly understand God. And until we admit we don't know as much as we think we do, the seeds God is constantly planting in us will be eaten by the birds before thay have a chance to sprout.

Now you can obviously guess that I am not a Bible literalist. Teaching in parables was a common technique used in Biblical times and Jesus used it constantly with the people. Give people the story and let them figure out the truth - inspirations increased many times over as more heard the story and let the seeds sprout in them. Only to his disciples did Jesus allegorize the stories or explain the symbolism he spoke of. To speak of the Bible as literal is to cast aside the methods of the writers and of God himself.

The discomfort comes in that we can't know for sure we are right, if we don't take things literally. And if we don't know the truth, how can we tell others the truth? How can we save other souls?

Well, Pastor Steve said something last night regarding the parables of the seeds in Mark 4 - all we can do is plan the seeds and let go. It's not our job to save souls. Only God can do that. All we can do is witness like Paul witnessed. But there should never be in our witness the claim that because this is how God works for me, that unless he works the same for you, you are condemned. I have seen God work in completely opposite directions with two people. Each was convinced that they knew God's mind and they both were right. For the solution was not in finding which one was right, but in finding a way to find the best compromise for everyone.

That was the most loving way of doing things.

Anyway, I am constantly listening for God's word in everything I read, everyone I hear. I believe we all see pieces of the truth and only by working together and sharing can we build a better image of God and his will for us.

I've been accused of rationalizing as if that were a dirty word. Of course I rationalize. God gave me a mind and the abiility to think things through. I don't think he intended for us to quit thinking when it comes to religion. I think God expects us to question what we are taught, to go to him and ask for enlightenment and inspiration.

So it seems counterproductive to argue over who is right and who is wrong since only God knows and especially since what's right for me is not necessarily right for someone else. Gone are the days when the Isrealites interacted with God as a group. Now, through Christ, we have the awesome and intimidating ability to interact with God as an individual. And God calls us as individuals to do things only he understands.

This is why it is so important that we respect each other. It's one area I know I need to work on myself. I find it very difficult to respect someone who cannot show respect for my own beliefs. It is difficult to respect someone who mocks God's relationship with me because it doesn't fit their ideas of how the world should work.

Yet in my faith, I have become a rock, unmoved by mockery or words. I have been condemned to hell by a man with a bullhorn. I have been scorned by men of God. I have been looked down on by friends.

Mark 4:22 states that "that which is hidden is meant to be disclosed."

So when God convinced me to finally bring this little light of mine out of the hidden closet, I felt empowered to finally move toward the work God has intended for me.

God's Infallible Word on a T-shirt

2005-05-04T10:50:00.000-07:00

Another great essay I "borrowed" from a friend's blog regard a student (Jake) sanctioned for wearing a "Homosexuality is Wrong" t-shirt at a university...

Things to add to your T-shirt
Rev. Timothy Dewald, Adjunct Professor of Mathematical Sciences and Coordinator of Academic Advising and Community Programs

Dear Jake,

Your T-shirt saying "Homosexuality is Wrong" is incomplete. As a "Bible believing Christian, someone who believes in the authority of the Bible as God's infallible Word to man, the one source of absolute truth," you need to add the following Bible beliefs to you T-shirt:

"Taking a Course from a Female Professor is Wrong." In your letter, you quoted 1 Timothy 1. Read on. 1 Timothy 2:12 says, "I permit no woman to teach or to have authority over a man, she it to keep silent." No female profs, it's as simple as that. As a Christian R.A., you might also want to remind those in your charge to avoid taking medical advice from female nurses, listening to any female staff officers, deans, associate deans, general officers, or vice-presidents, even if they are saved through bearing children (1 Timothy 2:14). I would also refrain from cashing any paychecks signed by a woman. Oh, and I hope you didn't vote for that George W. Bush. He had the nerve to make Condolezza Rice Secretary of State.

"Lesbian Gay is A-Ok with the Bible!" What a catchy phrase to wear on a T-shirt o r utter at the next Bible study! In 1 Timothy and throughout the Bible, only men are prohibited from having sex with other men. Women having sex with other women seem to be ok.

"Multiple Wives and Concubines are Godly Options." With the exception of bishops, men can have lots of wives as well as concubines. Your T-shirt should broadcast this important information. Share this good news with your girlfriend. She'll be even more secure in the knowledge that this is God's will and that, in your relationship, you intend to at least be open to the fact that King Solomon had 700 wives and 300 concubines (1 Kings 11:3). I'm certain you will receive some of the open dialog you have been requesting.

"Thou Shalt Not Eat Cheeseburgers or Peperoni Pizzas in the Residence Halls or Anywhere Else." This is stated three times in Exodus 23:19, 34:26, and Deuteronomy 14:21. Be sure to meet with the ice hockey team so you can tell them as a group that they are in violation of God's word. I would also inform the football team. Maybe you can meet with all of them at once. That would save time.

"Avoid the Math Department." You will have little trouble getting people to listen to you on this one. However just in case someone needs a biblical justification, let him or her know that the math department is teaching contrary to scripture. Those math heathen persist in claiming that the value of pi is approximately 3.14159 while 1 Kings 7:23 and II Chronicles 4:2 state clearly it is exactly 3.

"Avoid the Physics Department." They too teach contrary to the infallible scriptures, notably Genesis 1:16-17 which clearly states that there is no space, but rather a firmament holding out the waters of chaos and the sun and moon and stars are hung onto the dome of the firmament. A Bible believing Christian doesn't need Newton's laws, let alone relativity. And pay no attention to those phony planetary probes to Mars and Saturn, the Hubble telescope, and the NASA space shuttle. They are contrary to the teachings of scripture.

"Avoid the Biology Department." Not only do they refuse to teach creation science, they insist on teaching this odd theory that plants need sunlight to live. This of course is contrary to scripture in Genesis 1:11-14 which states that plants were created before sunlight.

"God Didn't Make Adam and Steve, He Made Adam and Animals." Next time your minister say, "God didn't make Adam and Steve, he made Adam and Eve," of course laugh along at this enormously clever repartee, even if it is at the expense of others. When the laughter dies down, be certain to stand up and publicly chastise him by citing Genesis 2:18-19. With a smile on your face, remind everyone of the literal truth -- that the first helper and parter God fashioned for Adam was neither Steve nor Eve, but animals and birds. Read this passage to your mother on Mother's Day. You will be certain to receive some open dialog for the reminder that this is the divine order of things. Finally, if someone asks whether this passage implies that God is fallible and doesn't always get things right on the first try, deftly but quickly change the subject, then denounce the person for blasphemy or heresy or something.

"Divorce is Adultery." When people are hurting from the pain of divorce, remind them that if they find happiness and marry again, they are adulterers (Mark 10:11). Remind them of the penalty for adultery is death by stoning. Hold a Christian seminar questioning why we don't get to stone people any more and oh, while I think of it, let us not forget to burn witches. Hey, it's tough, but somebody has to say these biblical truths.

"Get Some Real Biblical Heroes -- Like Lamech, the Nephilim, and Jephthah." Their stories are in Genesis 4:23, 6:1-4, and Judges 11:29-40. They're true role models, real he-men, especially Jephthah.One more suggestion. When quoting the Word of God, be sure to rely exclusively on the King James Version of the Bible because he was such an exemplary heterosexual.

If you make these additions, you'll have a T-shirt true to the literal word of God, not to mention, a swell T-shirt to wear around campus! I can guarantee that you will achieve your goal of an open exchange of ideas. Then, after you have had your open exchange of ideas, you may find that you need a new T-shirt, one that reads simply "Grace."

Free Speech or Hate Speech??

2005-05-04T10:45:00.000-07:00

A great essay I "borrowed" from a friend's blog regard a student (Jake) sanctioned for wearing a "Homosexuality is Wrong" t-shirt at a university...

Don't try to justify prejudice
Dr. Scott Eggert, Professor of Music

I find it hard to believe that Jake is unable to understand why he has been discouraged by the Student Services staff from wearing a T-shirt with the phrase "Homosexuality is wrong" printed on it (La Vie, April 21, 2005). Come on, Jake, even though you aren't black, or gay, or a Jew, or physically disabled, (or gee, perhaps not a member of any recently ostracized group at all!), still, you are able to understand the concept, right?

You say you want a dialogue of "ideas," but "ideas" that support and encourage irrational prejudice, and consequently even violence, against innocent members of a society, must not be sanctioned by an institution that purports to educate.

But why do you quote Paul? You know that the "good law" he is reaffirming for Christians in your passage is clearly stated for all to read, right from the "infallible" mouth of God, in the Old Testament. (Even Jesus says, "Think not that I have come to abolish the law.") The prohibition of "sodomy" is right there, in Leviticus and Deuteronomy -- along with all the specific instructions on how to deal with your slaves. Perhaps you should consider wearing a T-shirt on campus saying, "Let's bring back black slavery." How else can you obey God's specific commandments in this regard? All of God's squeamishness about physically disabled and "blemished" people is there too; He obviously doesn't want them anywhere near His altars. Have you got a "No amputees in church" T-shirt? Do you approve of bigamy? God clearly does. His commandments on the status of wives are clear. Do you burn animals in sacrifice as God asks?

The fact is, Jake, that you daily ignore a large number of God's "infallible" commandments as set down in His laws. As well you should. There are many beautiful and useful lessons in the scriptures, but these are not among them. The culture, for the most part, has grown beyond the practices dealt with in these ancient books.But not quite beyond the prohibition of homosexuality, right?

It must be wonderfully convenient to be able to validate one's prejudices and distastes by finding a few choice phrases in a vast compendium of ancient values. And it is only that -- your personal discomfort with the idea of gay people -- that inspires you to wear such a T-shirt, not your faith in the "authority of the Bible," which you frequently, and probably knowingly, ignore.

That distaste, even "disgust" is not too strong a word, is the source of most kinds of prejudice, of course. And your T-shirt, Jake, feeds it, nourishes it. It's like throwing meat to hungry animals. "Homosexuality is wrong" is almost synonymous with: "Homosexuality is immoral," isn't it? And how far is that from "Homosexuality is evil?" If this is true, then, "Homosexuality must be stopped," is a small step, and "Homosexuality must be eliminated," makes perfect sense. And finally, we get to the T-shirt that says, "Kill a Queer for Christ."

I do know, Jake, that you intend no such thing by you T-shirt. But if you cannot see the logic, even the likelihood, of this connection, then nothing that history has to teach will ever teach you anything.

Meanwhile in Judaism

2005-04-12T10:39:00.000-07:00

Rabbi Elliot Dorff, the committee vice chairman and rector of the University of Judaism in Los Angeles, has argued that the verses in Leviticus refer to promiscuous sex, not monogamous relations between adults. He said telling gays to be celibate would be “cruel” and “un-Jewish” because Jewish tradition says sexual desires should be channeled into “legitimate modes of expression” not suppressed.

“I think the general thrust in American society has been toward recognizing not only the right of gays and lesbians to form committed relationships but almost their duty to do so, in the same way that heterosexuals are both medically and morally better off if they form monogamous relationships,” Dorff said.

Death Penalty Advocates - For Gays etc.

2005-04-12T09:03:00.000-07:00

A scary quote from a Salon article about a conference called "Confronting the Judicial War on Faith" an anti-judicial right wing event attracting the likes of Jerry Falwell and Tom Delay.

Christian Reconstructionism calls for a system that is both radically decentralized, with most government functions devolved to the county level, and socially totalitarian. It calls for the death penalty for homosexuals, abortion doctors and women guilty of "unchastity before marriage," among other moral crimes. To be fair, Phillips told me that "just because a crime is capital doesn't mean you must impose the death penalty. It means it's an option." Public humiliation, he said, could sometimes be used instead.

This is the group hinting not all that subtly about killing judges as well. Citing Joseph Stalin...

"Death solves all problems: no man, no problem."

These people are also trying to rewrite history claiming the Ten Commandments as the foundation of the US Constitution. It's not. And democracy is not a Judeo/Christian creation - it is Greek.

And yet another quote from the article...

Nor is DeLay this crowd's only firm ally in Congress. Michael Schwartz, the longtime right-wing operative who now serves as Sen. Coburn's chief of staff, made The Hammer sound soft. "This problem that we're dealing with fundamentally is a question of sovereignty," he said. He went on to argue that, "when the Supreme Court says that there is a right to kill babies in the Constitution and therefore we can't have laws against that, or there is a right to commit buggery in the Constitution and we can't have laws against that," it implicitly asserts that "the people have no right to make laws."

As my friend calls them... the American Taliban.

Exploitation

2005-04-12T08:57:00.000-07:00

A wonderful quote I came across....

Religion can help us be kind, sincere, and honest. But all too often we cherry-pick its teachings to condemn those we don't agree with. Religion also comes handy in other less-than-sublime purposes. What could be better than exploiting religion for a politician to sway people and strengthen his hold on power?

As many rivers flow to merge in one ocean, many paths for spiritual enlightenment can achieve the same goal. The problem begins when we want to portray our religion as the best: "mine is the one true religion and all others are false." Such religious fervor leads to endless violence.No other cause in human history has resulted in as many killings.

Imagine a world where we don't feel a need to condemn anyone because "the book of my religion says so."

Anu Garg

Two Spirits

2004-08-11T06:52:00.000-07:00

The name "two spirits" comes from Native American culture. They used the term to describe their gay tribe members. The term described the belief that gays possessed two different spirits inside - one male and one female. Many Native American tribes not only accepted the gays in their society, but often revered and respected them as medicine men and women and as shamans.

Open Letter to Fundamentalists

2004-08-10T14:11:00.000-07:00

I stumbled across your website recently and was amazed at how thoroughly and “scientifically” your words and Robert Bowman’s invalidated me as a Christian, dismissed my faith and belittled God’s work in my life. I trust that your motives are to assist in my salvation, yet I fear that your technique drives away far more than it attracts.

I am constantly amused at how many heterosexuals have homosexuality all figured out. You dismiss the involuntary physiological changes that I have on seeing a good-looking man. You paint with a broad brush as you presume to know my lifestyle while all the homosexuals I know life lives nearly identical to heterosexual counterparts. Promiscuity and the abuse of drugs and alcohol are hardly the sole property of gays and have more to do with self-esteem than sexual orientation.

You simplify homosexuality down to a mere act without trying to understand the founding psychology that drives us all. I surely hope your marriages are deeper than simply a vehicle for sexual gratification. Most of all, you know nothing about what my soul is like and show no interest in finding out. You analyze and critique, but it is all meaningless drivel. No doubt you have had to defend your faith to someone who says God does not exist. Yet you use the same methods to persecute me, my family, my friends and my relationship with God.

I shouldn’t have to tell you that Christianity is about love, not logic; it’s about faith in things unseen and acts that cannot be understood, not words written in virtual stone; it’s about openness to new revelations not closed mindedness; and it’s about compassion and caring for the Samaritan not crossing to the other side of the road. And it is thanks to your work and those of you ilk that I am derided by my fellow gays as I am by many Christians.

But I fear that your focus on me has made you myopic towards your own sins of false pride, intolerance, fomenting hatred, slander, abuse of trust, driving away God’s children and even idolatry of the perfection of the Bible. Recall that Christ told us he would send a comforter in the form of the Holy Spirit. He said nothing about sending the Bible.

Yet I cry at the thousands of homosexuals that people like yourselves are driving out of the church and alienating from God. I deal with it every day as I try to repair the damage and bring these souls back to a loving God. I show there is hope where others offer only condemnation. I myself suffered a major crisis of faith that only my strong intimate relationship with God was able to salvage. I could not deny his work in my life from sheltering me from my own self-destruction to sending me a wife and son who truly understand and have enabled me to blossom in God’s light.

I have been a Christian all my life, born to a minister, my faith has been a strong foundation in my life. I have also been gay all my life and knew at the age of six that I was different. By ten I had been taught those differences were fatal flaws that I must conceal at all costs. I grew up under the influence of your interpretation of scriptures and believed that being gay and being a Christian were mutually exclusive. I was married for 20 years and have a wonderful son from that marriage.

But when my denial of myself grew to the point of destroying both myself and my beloved wife, God spoke to me. He asked me a very simple question – why am I ashamed of the wonderful man he has created in me?

God taught me how to love myself and more importantly how to get past the unproductive slavery of shame and get to work for him. And while God led me and my wife to divorce, he ensured that the foundation of our covenant remained intact.

Now while I am quite accustomed to being abused for being gay, I take offense when you attack God’s role in my life. You claim inerrancy of the scriptures which troubles me for it ascribes God-like perfection to the writers and translators. It also implies that God no longer needs to speak to us. This seems too close to heresy for my taste. I prefer to believe the Bible is a book of truth, truth being the inherent word of God. Yet our human minds are often clouded to the truth or incapable of understanding God’s higher purpose.

I now thank God with jubilation that he has blessed me with the gift of being gay and the tremendous capacity of love I have for that special man. I thank God for the opportunity to do his will and spread his message. I am proud in having God as my father and feel blessed by his walk with me. And I thank him for removing the black abyss of shame that separated us.

I ask you now, what difference would it make in your thinking if God personally told you that he creates homosexuals, loves them as his children and desires their full and happy lives. What if he told you to quit persecuting your brothers and sisters in his name? Would that make a difference? Would you even listen?

Well, consider yourselves told.

May the light of God be upon you and peace be in your soul.

Links

2004-08-10T09:25:00.000-07:00

Here are some links you might find interesting:

www.truluck.com - Recovering from Bible abuse

Being Gay, Being Christian

2004-08-10T07:54:00.000-07:00

It's difficult being gay. You are different and a minority in the world. You are often persecuted and shunned by the straight community.

And being a gay Christian makes me a minority within a minority. I find other gays running away. It is understandable. After all gays have found abuse not only within society, but traditional refuges of family and faith are often sources of abuse. Sadly most gays reject God along with hurtful religion. I find that most have been taught a distorted image of who God is and given a picture of a punitive, angry and vengeful entity. I believe God is none of those things.

There was a time when I thought being gay and being religious were mutually exclusive. After all the Bible clearly condemns homosexuality... Or does it?

Many Christians will ask the question "Would God create a person he would condemn to hell?" Most people say no. Then they will point out that since the Bible clearly condemns homosexuality, then God didn't create homosexuals.

But they forget the other leg of the logic -
IF GOD DOES CREATE HOMOSEXUALS THEN HE DOESN'T CONDEMN THEM AND THE BIBLE IS BEING MISINTERPRETED.

Now I know it's a shock that the Bible might be misinterpreted (this is irony folks). But I have been on a close walk with God all my life. I grew up the son of a minister. I read and research. I pray and meditate. And when I was in the dark depths of the closet, God asked me this question...

WHY ARE YOU ASHAMED OF THE WONDERFUL MAN I HAVE CREATED IN YOU.

Of course he added that being ashamed was not very productive and that I should come out with pride and get to the work he has set for me.

So that's why this is here. It's a chance to tell my story, to share my ideas, to examine my spirituality and to bring hope to others like me who are struggling through what looks to be a no-win situation.

So I'm glad you have found me. Check back for more.

I thank God for giving me the awesome gift of my sexuality. It has taken me decades to understand that it is a precious gift, one I would not change for anything. Being gay is an integral part of me. It makes me loving and sensitive and compassionate. To remove it from me would be to destroy me completely. My very soul is gay.

I am proud to be gay and proud of my God who created me and blessed me with this very special gift.