Dear Gays, Lesbians and Supporters Everywhere,
I want to start this off right, by addressing you all first, so that we can get all of the mess out of the way before I get started: I know that many of you may have clickedhere thinking you would see so much hate for you and your people, so much spite and prejudice and anger. Maybe you thought you would see a man who bought into all of the propaganda and the religious hatemongering or a man who is just too scared to come out of his dark, sad closet. But I want you to know that you're mistaken.
I love you.
I don't know who you are, and I don't care: you're a person, and because of the fact that you are a human being, I care so deeply for you. That may not make sense to a lot of people,but it is the absolute truth, you matter to me because you are a human. Whether you're gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, straight, black, white, asian or hispanic, I love you as a person and a human being. I want to see you happy, I want to see you fulfilled, and I want to see you thrive.
Most of you won't believe that, but now I can at least say I tried to tell you. It's the truth, and some things are the truth whether we believe them or not.
Now, we can get a few other things out of the way.
If you asked me if I thought homosexuality was a choice, I would tell you yes and no. Honestly, I know that for some people it is a very blatant and clear choice: some people I know have chosen to be gay for attention, for the pity, or out of rebellion. But I also know that many people do not make a conscious choice to be gay. It happens, they have a feeling, they experience the differences from the beginning. And maybe those people make a choice subconsciously. And maybe they don't. Maybe the things that happen to them help their subconscious to form that opion, that leaning, that preference. I'm not just talking about the obvious that gets thrown around so often, abusive parents, absentee fathers, molestation. But maybe there are other things too, like a good friend of the same gender who, as a young child without a full grasp on the concept of love and sexuality, you thnk you would like to marry and spend life with. Maybe a young man wants to be like his mum, or enjoys the protective embrace of his father. These aren't negative things, but they can tweak the psyche to have a preference.
Or maybe they don't. I'm not a psychologist, after all.
But that was how it happened for me: I had the positive and the negative from thebeginning, and I don't know when it started, or how, but I remember liking boys at a very early age. My dad was not the best, and my mother was young and just trying to make things work. But I didn't have a bad childhood. In fact, I really appreciate my childhood, and there isn't much I would change.
Before we go on, and yes, some of you have been waiting for this, yes, I am a Christian. That formed a lot of my opinions on homosexuality, but not in the way you would think. Now we could go off on some long tangent about what the Bible does and does not say about being gay (I'm not a psychologist, but I am a linguist), but the point of this journal isn't to argue theology and push and guilt people into changing. I just want to change, and if it can be done, i want the world to know. If it can't well that's pretty important too, right?
Anyway, I love myself, and I'm proud of who I am. But I love God much more than I love myself. and so I know that, according to His word, being gay isn't right. And I also feel that he wouldn't just set me up to be gay without a way out through Him. I'm not on the 'Pray the Gay Away' level, but I think by building a stronger relationship with Him, I can break away from whatever sinful lifestyle I've adopted.
And my belief in Him has not made me hate gay people; in fact, quite the opposite has happened. Yes, I think that homosexuality is wrong, but isn't stealing wrong too? Lying? Disrespecting your parents? Lusting (after men or women)? The list goes on and on, and I've done a good majority of those things, as has every single other person in the world. If God Himself, says it's a sin, who am I to tell Him that He's wrong?
We're all wrong in some way, and God never said there was a scale. It's not like lying gets a 3 on the sin scale, and being gay gets a 7 and murder gets a 9. God says a sin is a sin, and we all need help. He also says to love everyone. Love everyone just like you love yourself, because no matter how messed up they are, or how wrong their lifestyle may seem to you or how much of there sin you can list off, you're just as bad. They aren't woth less than you. That means, no matter how wrong I think homosexuality is, I can't say I'm any better than a homosexual at the end of the day, be I straight or not, because everyone has done *something* to sin. So why hate because someone is doing the equivalent of what you have done. That's where so many people get it wrong, they thing they're so high and mighty and holy because they can say that they're straight. But to God, no one is better than anyone else. The pastor in the pulpit is not more important to God than the prostitute on the street. He loves them both dearly.
That probably got a little convoluted. Long stroy short, God doesn't hate gays, and I don't either. But that doesn't mean God is down with supporting the gays either. God loves thieves, murderers and liars too. We're all wrong in some way, and God loves us anyway.
Now don't get me wrong, I'm not saying gays are bad people. There have been some amazing contributions to the world from people in the gay community. HIV and AIDS research is at an all-time high! That's amazing! People are getting anew chance at life because of contributions from the gay society. Countless inventions, films and works of art, scientific discoveries all from gay people.
I'm not talking about gays being bad people here, and I'm not talking about arguing theologies and philosophies either. I just know that God has said it's wrong. And so if it is within my power (and His power) to change it, I might as well give it a good college try.
But I don't have you, whoever you are. In fact, I love you deeply. And even moreso, God loves you. Enough that He knew that you would be gay, and He knew that it was a sin, and He thought about your face and said, 'I'd die for you.'
And then He did!
I hope you decide to follow me on my journey. I'm going to just do some chronicling here, how my days go as I try to change, my successes, my faillures, my prayers. And hopefully we'll see results one way or the other.
Thanks for coming. Feel free to shoot me an email at leavinggay4him at gmail.com
Yours,
B
