I was raised to believe that being gay was a choice and that "living a gay lifestyle" was a sin close to murder.
I just kind of ignored this uncomfortable part of my religion since I didn't really know anyone that was gay (unless you count the super cute boy I had a crush on in high school and later found out was gay, which, of course, was just plain heartbreaking for me. Poor me. Ugh. Can you imagine what he must have been going through in high school?) Also, I am one hundred percent certain that I knew gay people, I just didn't know they were.
Over the years, my religious leaders started to see that their abhorrent language directed toward LGBTQ+ people wasn't really working out so well for them, so they decided to change things up and switch the belief to be that it is ok to be gay (or queer) but you just can't "act on it" according to God's rules.
These were "God's" rules, so you can't blame them.
They don't make the rules. God does, of course.
But the longer I lived and got to know and love more and more people, the more I realized things weren't adding up.
They just weren't adding up.
I mean, really.
I can't state this enough.
Things.
Were.
Not.
Adding.
Up.
Like how God used to say women shouldn't speak in church.
Or how slavery used to be acceptable at one point.
Or how God used to say that black people had the "curse of Cain."
Um.
Wait, what?
Either God is super mean, confused, and inconsistent or people (including religious leaders and writers) are just getting things wrong over the course of our existence as a species.
As soon as I realized that the latter is much more likely, everything changed for me.
I realized that I didn't have to buy into all the things religious leaders were saying to me and I could just love people for who they are.
Imagine that.
Just loving people for who they are.
Honestly, it is THAT SIMPLE.
People are beautifully diverse and I don't have to worry about the details of their personal lives.
That's it.
End of discussion.
No debates.
No long-winded, mind-bending, scripture-twisting, back-and-forth, convoluted, complicated, elaborate, tangled, thorny, ever-changing theological disputes.
It's over for me.
Love and only love. Anything else is not good enough. - Sky Olson
Lots of love,
(Also, I want to say I am so sorry for my past bigotry. I didn't look deeper. I didn't think it through. I ignored it. I am sorry. I was wrong. Thank you to the amazing people who are helping me see and do better.)
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