"Real" Christians Hate Gays

This piece isn't a theology debate to try and change your mind on LGBTQ rights. It's not even necessarily a conversation starter on the issue. No, it's just a simple post on how sometimes love becomes stronger after years of hate.

It's about choosing love when hate hurts your soul.

This is just me sharing a bit of my heart with this post.

If you asked those closest to me what is something I am passionate about, it's likely you would hear something along the lines of seeing the world through a more logical lense. The thing is they would also likely add doing this passionately...which is where my putting "logic" into practice can look more like diving head first in understanding something I will soon become passionate about. The thing is this process can very much be a gradual occurrence. Even years in the making.

It was this pattern that becoming LGBTQ Affirming came about. First, I did not know whether I believed "homosexuality" was a "sin." I knew what I had been taught and recalled each preacher screaming from the pulpit that "sodomites will bust hell wide open!" I vividly remember the utter disgust, and yes, even fear I witnessed whenever this was referenced in a sermon. There was the fear that "being gay" was almost somehow contagious. And the very misinformed and fear mongering stance that gay men were pedophiles. "Don't let the gays take your children," they'd yell, borrowing a line straight out of the playbook of another more extreme Independent Fundamental Baptist pastor, Fred Phelps of Westboro Baptist Church.

I recall terrifying stories of pastors who were counseling gay teenagers watching them supposedly turn over to a reprobate mind. I remember the warnings to avoid anyone that dressed "gay," because they would assault me. There were horror tales about young innocent children being lured with candy on Halloween only to be murdered. I grew up terrified of contracting AIDS, said to be a "gay man's disease." At one point, I was convinced a gay loved one would hurt me and my family during a family trip because of these teachings. I was scared to sit down and eat a meal in fear I'd contract a deadly disease. In the end, it was watching the disappointment and hurt on this loved one's face that I not only ate spaghetti with them, but went back for another helping.

That moment planted a seed in my mind and yeah, my heart, too. I found myself only 12 years old, sheltered and led to believe that my own family member was damned, fearful that I would die myself and yet, something as simple as recognizing the hurt on this person's face had me putting that all aside to find the courage and sit down with them. By the end of that visit, I accepted a hug and repeated an "I love you" back, even if a bit awkward. And, I meant it even though I didn't know what I believed in, or more accurately–in spite of what I believed in.

Several years later, it would be the fact that hating the LGBTQ just didn't feel "Christ-like." Neither did the whole "love the sinner, hate the sin." Sitting in my pew, in my childhood church, I wrestled with agreeing this was sin and yet, I felt very much that we were all bullies. I found I needed to go out of my way to be kind to anyone I perceived as LGBTQ. I grew up with the occasional church member hanging out the window of the moving car we were riding in to jeer and scream at someone that was a sinner walking along the sidewalk. I even vaguely recall a young father telling a young man to leave a store where his family was in because he believed this young man was gay and that translated into a pedophile. As ridiculous as it sounds, an elderly lady gifted the church with beautiful blue hymn books, but then at one point, the church removed them, boxed them up and stored them away because a lesbian supposedly had written a song within its pages. There were just so many hurtful actions, stances, and teachings that it's honestly a lot to unbox. There are days I think I'll never be able to.

The reasons to hate the LGBTQ community was a list I had found would continue to grow. By the time I left, it included: men have sex with men, and women with women; they were said to be pedophiles; they were a threat to marriage; they were a threat to the home; they ran public schools; they controlled the laws; they spread disease; they turned young people gay; they were "troublemakers."

My homestate was one of the first states to legalize gay marriage and I remember well watching celebrators waving colorful banners and shouting with joy as tears rolled down their faces. I listened to a gay man and bisexual woman choke up on live TV how they finally felt seen. One even looked at the camera to tell their parents they knew they were disappointed, but finally someone accepted and affirmed them. All of this left an impression on me, but still, I felt then that the law didn't need to be changed...because well, it was the law. I thought it was logical to leave things be. Let some things stay the same. After all, it was about tradition, not hate.

I think the biggest wake up call and the thing to really force me to choose where I stood, to follow my conscience was the Pulse Nightclub Massacre where a single gunman took the lives of so many precious souls. It was then I drew my line in the sand. I had left fundamentalism, but was still grappling with where I stood on this issue. I watched those I knew victim shame the dead, including the straight friend who was also killed with his gay friends. It was such a sureal feeling: staying home from church and mourning along with the world. I felt a more spiritual awakening, if you will, just being a bit human for a moment. I always thought it was a beautiful sign when a rainbow appeared in the sky just two days later in Orlando, Florida.

The most true sense of the word affirming was having a loved one share they were LGBTQ. Remember, at this point I still wasn't sure of anything other than I didn't want to be hateful anymore. Not accepting them, not being on their side, not supporting them was impossible. Because for all the teachings that Fundamentalism taught me the one true one I could hold onto was this: God doesn't make mistakes. The only mistake to be made would be using God as an escape route of stepping out of our comfort zone to resonate with the hurt on the face of the individual we're getting a holy free pass to hate. The best thing I ever did was put down my Bible and loved them.

Nothing felt more biblical, more holy, more right, more Jesus approved than to choose love.

Not hate, not fear, not misinformation, not doctrine, not theology, not the church, not the pastor, not what people would think–but love.

Nothing felt so passionately logical than to love someone. So I did.


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