I am a christian. This doesn't make me evil.

[galadriel1010]

"Sorry, you're wrong. The Christians have set this agenda – they want to maintain their ‘ancient’ right to discriminate against gay people.

They also want to get their hands on as many impressionable and vulnerable young people as they can to pervert them with their corrupt ideologies.

When they renounce their discrimination and stop indoctinating our young with their hurtful oppression we can all be friends again. Simple."

If you know me, you're probably aware that I'm a gay christian. The full deal is gay christian, pro-choice up to a point (if it's started kicking and responding to your voice, then I think that that point has been reached), pro-science, believe in intelligent (and sometimes unintelligent) design, and think that God has very little impact on my daily life. My relationship with God is a little bit like the one I have with my brother - he's just there, and I don't neccessarily like him all the time, but he's still there.

The comment I opened with, directed at me, by the way, was hurtful enough as it was. What made it worse was the fact that it was a reply to me saying, in reply to someone else, that some liberal christians don't feel that they can stand up for gay rights because they feel like they're not welcome. My actual quote was:

"We’re doing what we can, and you’ll probably find christians in the counter protests, but there’s a horrible wave within the gay rights movement that thinks that gay rights have to be gained at the expense of religious rights; I don’t just mean in the B&B and fostering cases, either, but from people who think that christians shouldn’t be allowed to foster children full stop, even if they’re the most tolerant, brilliant parents in the world. It can be quite threatening at times."

And the reply I got was "christians are just determined to discriminate and to bring children up to do the same".

So why don't liberal christians speak up more often? Would you speak up for someone else's rights if they thought that they could only get their rights at the expense of yours, and you knew they were going to give you verbal abuse for being you?

And yet some do, because that's what christianity is, at the end of the day. There's churches doing their best to welcome gay people in (which is hard, because they don't want to come), there's christians showing up to gay pride marches to apologise for the batshit parts of our faith family and to add their support, there's christians working in shelters and as counsellors, as MPs voting in support of gay rights amendments, and as foster parents who give their full support to gay children.

But they don't count, of course, because they believe in the "sky pixie" and so their actions and views are invalidated.

So if you think that I'm worth less because I'm a christian, in the words of Woopie Goldberg as Sister Mary Clarence, "bless you".

Comments

[jooles34.livejournal.com]

I totally get what you mean. People assume that I must be faithless and anti religion because I am bi. I am not. I am a Christian and my faith is strong. I believe in a God of love who recognises that love comes in many forms. It's a weird existance that in day to day life I find it easier to come out as bi than I do as a Christian.

Yes there are those Christians who are still anti-gay, but there are so many who are fully supportive and welcoming. But as you say, the other speak louder so that's all anyone hears. And (this will piss peopple of, but it's just my opinion, I'm not asking anyone else to buy in) I still think there is a huge section of the LGBT community who look for things to be pissed of at and take offence at. These are the ones who only listen to the loud Christian anti-gay movement and ignore the wealth of Christian support that is out there. It's a mentality I've never understood, but run into far too many times. It's why I stopped being active in LGBT campaigning.

I'm really sorry that people have directed their thoughtless comments against you like this.

[fiwen1010.livejournal.com]

It's a weird existance that in day to day life I find it easier to come out as bi than I do as a Christian.

Definitely this.

I still think there is a huge section of the LGBT community who look for things to be pissed of at and take offence at.

I think they're looking for someone to blame more, possibly.

I've brought it up online before on anon communities and elsewhere, and have been told repeatedly that bullying christians doesn't matter because we're the dominant religion. Equality doesn't work like that. It makes me pissy and unwilling to help.