Gays Aren't Necessarily Atheists
By Bonnie Erbe, Thomas Jefferson Street blog.
My colleague Dan Gilgoff's latest filing is headlined, "Gays Step Up Efforts to Reverse Gay-as-Godless Stereotype."
I guess growing up in "godless" New York City, I, too, labored under the delusion that most gays and lesbians did not believe in god or go to church, as neither did anyone else I grew up with. I had two experiences, however, within the last 10 years ago or so, that made me realize some gays are extremely religious.
In the first, I boarded my horses years ago at a gay rodeo barn. Yes, there is such a thing as gay rodeo and if you were a gay cowboy you would understand why it's needed. Imagine what might happen to an out gay cowboy at a rodeo out West in a small town hundreds of miles away from a big city. While I would hope the answer would be "nothing" one can imagine terrible consequences.
There was a gay couple there who were from Louisiana and very devout Catholics. I asked one of them why he continued to believe in a faith that rejected him so completely, and he said that religion was drilled into him from birth and he couldn't imagine living without it.
The second instance was when I covered the international conference put on by the Metropolitan Community Church, a gay Christian church started decades ago in California. I walked into a huge church auditorium and there were thousands of gays and lesbians singing hymns and crying as they watched a gay pastor deliver a sermon, many of them for the first time. It was an extremely emotional experience.
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Reader Comments
Aetheist
Gays aren't aethiests? Big deal. Satan, by definition, is also not an aetheist. He believes God exists just like many people proudly living a gay lifestyle do - but believing God exists sure doesn't make either of them right in God's eyes.
Many will say 'Lord, Lord.... we did many wonderful works in your name'. Response? ' I NEVER KNEW YOU: depart from me, you workers of evil.'
Worship in spirit and truth - yeah, don't forget that truth thing when it comes to pleasing God.
kate
You really need to research American history. First, very few people could actually afford slaves in the beginning. Second, we did not steal them. Their enemies (other Africans) did most of the kidnapping and sold their prisoners to Europeans. So if you want to blame someone for black slavery in America blame the blacks that encouraged whites to continue to the slave trade by offerring "goods". Third, slavery stayed in the south and the north remained free states. Fourth, only 5-6% of the white population from the south owned slaves. So, blacks really were not that big of a factor in the American economy as seen after the Civil War, and we didn't steal them.
You say that Christians should not judge what your comment implies that you are judging us for being wrong. How do you explain this? As for how we know we are correct in what we say, God gave His commands in His written word the Bible and homosexuallity is forbidden. (As is heterosexual offenses). If you read my comment you would find that Steve's post was not that good in terms of reasoning. True Christians don't begrudge anyone from worshipping God, but we don't tolerate people who say they can worship God and have what is plainly an immoral lifestyle according to Scripture.
Donna truely hit the mark in her post. Christians don't expect people to be perfect, but they do expect themselves to strive for perfection.
Tired of this stereotyping
I don't know what planet some people are living on. WE cannot turn our planet into a perfect place. IT'S IMPOSSIBLE. All good people will tell you, christian or not, that they are not perfect. That we all sin. Since when in the history of human beings has forcing(legislating) certain behaviors worked? Have murders stopped? Has abuse, neglect, rape, etc. stopped?
More to this point, what about Roe v. Wade? Did it fix the problem? Easy answer. No. It has divided families and communities better than anything else has ever done.
For me, that is why I am against changing the def. of marriage. When society demands change, it will happen. I don't want the Supreme Court, a few elected officials, and a very small percentage of our society creating another division in this country. Can we please learn from history?
By the way Ms. Erbe, I challenge you to explain how the catholic church has 'completely rejected' the homosexual lifestyle. The church also teaches no pre-marital sex - not to use contraception to prevent pregnancy - Many of us are not perfect, but it is us rejecting church teaching, not the other way around. Otherwise, quit the stereotyping of a large segment of our country based on the statements of a few bigots.
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