Enough Is Enough: Christians, Homosexuality, And The Casting Of Stones

This piece first appeared on HuffPost

I am so tired of hate speech spewing Christians. They of the holier-than-though contingent who seem to think their shit doesn’t stink. 

I am tired of my homosexuality being labeled a sin. 

I am tired of my acting upon my sexual desires being labeled a sin.

John 8:7 (KJV): “He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone…” 

Ever notice how many of those stones are being cast by Christians? 

Enough with the sin talk already.

Heterosexuals do not corner the market on sex. Because let’s face it, it’s all about the sex isn’t it? That “nasty,” “disgusting,” hurts-so-good butt sex that many people can’t seem to wrap their heads around? What does it matter how two (or more) people express their love for one another? I can even take love out of the sentence and put it even more bluntly. What does it matter how two (or more) people choose to get off? There are even heterosexuals who enjoy a visit to Butt Town.

Homosexuals are not perverse as some are wont to think. And enough with the desire to round us up and kill us. Would you have another holocaust? This time on American soil? From some of the statements I read from Christian leaders in this country, I’m thinking a rainbow holocaust of epic proportions is exactly what some want. I get the feeling there would be much joy from some after an LGBTQ elimination.

I doubt that anyone who hates gay people enough to wish death upon us cares, but I’m a human being. And living with that kind of hate on the periphery for my entire life is challenging to say the least. 

What I find so interesting about hate is the part choice plays in it. Think about this. I’m the gay man. Who could possibly know better than I what I feel and who I’m attracted to? Do you know better than I what I feel because you’re a conservative, a Christian, a whatever else you claim to be? You’re wrong. But here’s what I know. You make a choice. You have chosen to hate something you can’t accept. You have chosen to believe the words of the Bible without question. You have chosen to follow the doctrine of a religion that picks and chooses what is sin. You have made a choice. I did not. 

I was born gay just as I was born with a crossed left eye and blond hair that eventually turned brown. I didn’t have a choice in those matters. It’s that simple.

If people would stop casting their stones for just one second—one second—and look, they would be able to see the LGBTQ people—the human beings—in front of them. But our country—America—is filled with pious people who think they’re doing the “right” thing, but have merely consumed the Kool-Aid laid out for them on the silver platter of self-righteousness.

Who I love, fuck, or get off with is no one’s business unless I share the details. A non-heterosexual couple who wants to get married does not affect negatively the institution of marriage. It’s time to get over that notion. That belief is nothing more than irrational delusion.

It fills me with anger when I see a video like the one posted by Theodore Shoebat calling my homosexuality a perversion worthy of death. Are you kidding me? The professed ‘Christian Militant’ (Christian Militant??) is pious indeed. This man is so drunk on the power of his religious superiority that he believes that people should be put to death merely because they are homosexual. Look in the mirror, sir. You’ve got a little bit of shit dribble on your face.

I grew up in a small town in Kentucky filled with fear and shame because I was gay. (Thank you religion.) I continue to fight against those fears and that shame every day to be the person I want to be and to fully live my life. 

Hate is taught; it is learned. Love comes naturally. I, and my LGBTQ brothers and sisters, deserve to live, to thrive, to love. I know that attitudes toward LGBTQ are more positive and accepting than ever, but I also know that hate has carved out its place in this country. 

I’m not casting a stone but…isn’t hate and the wishing of death a sin?

Hey Benham Brothers, Maybe The Message On The Winds Of The Hurricanes Is For You

This piece first appeared on HuffPost

First Kings 19:12 (KJV): “And after the earthquake a fire; but the Lord was not in the fire: and after the fire a still small voice.”

A reader of the scriptures learns in the above verse of the still small voice in which God spoke to the prophet Elijah. As a child I remember wondering what that voice would sound like. Would it be an actual voice? Would I know it was God speaking to me? Would I hear it? Would it be a sign that I would see and then take as God’s voice?

The pastor of the church I attended with my parents during my childhood would often say that God had spoken to him about a passage of scripture, which he would then use as the basis for that day's sermon. I grew up believing that God physically spoke to people in the present as I believed he had in the biblical past. I was an innocent then, a child who had yet to see how hateful people can be.

Stephen Sondheim said it beautifully with his lyric, “Careful the things you say, children will listen” from the song “Children Will Listen” from the fairytale musical Into The Woods. He’s not wrong. Children will listen, and they do. They believe. They trust. They don’t often question. But when children grow up, some of what they blindingly believed becomes glaringly untrue.

As an adult who questions everything, I find it annoying (I’m working on finding it entertaining) how God "speaks" to people nowadays. 

Let’s talk specifically about the Benham brothers, David and Jason; twins, who reside in North Carolina, and are so anti-gay that they’re basically pro-hate. They are just the latest in a line of Christians making ridiculous statements about how God sent the recent Hurricanes (Harvey and, specifically, Irma) in retaliation for equality: gay marriage, LGBTQ acceptance, Trans rights, gender identity. 

David Benham: “So today, there’s a message from God for us.”

Jason Benham: (citing Psalms 104:4 [NIV]) “God, he makes the winds his messengers.”

So according to these two, the winds of the hurricanes are messengers sent from God. And God is using these winds to say that we—the people, the nation—need to repent for our egregious sin of finally moving in the direction of equality for ALL human beings. 

If the Benham brothers’ message came from God, then I think God is a little shady. I mean, seriously…speaking to one person one way and another person another? Is he playing us against each other? Is he telling Rick Wiles, Kevin Swanson, the Benham brothers, or any local homophobe one thing while telling other people who fully accept LGBTQ humans something else? How are we supposed to know which voice is the actual voice of God? And who’s telling the truth? Is God a pot stirrer of Mean Girls proportions? Shady indeed.

I think the voice is just that of the subconscious reminding one of what he believes, telling him want he wants to hear, reassuring him of his “rightness.” Those innermost beliefs then get spouted from the proverbial mountain top in the form of words declared without hesitation to be God's own. 

I question the mental stability of anyone who thinks Hurricane Harvey bore down on Houston because of its progressive attitude toward LGBTQ people or because of its former lesbian mayor. Case in point: Ann Coulter’s tweet (click the link). Sounds like her own hateful prejudice coming out to me. But then again, she’s a pot stirrer. 

To believe that Hurricane Irma is yet another punishment for the Divided (er, United) States of America because I can legally get married is an absurd belief. One that unfortunately continues to restrict and limit too many in this country…and the world. 

As much as I’ve questioned my own religious upbringing over the years, I’ve never really stopped to think about God saying hateful, nasty, negative things about LGBTQ people to one group and then turning around and telling another group that LGBTQ people are perfectly exactly the people we’re supposed to be. Born this way! I mean I am made in his image if I'm to believe the words of the Bible that so many take as truth and law. At least the verses that are picked and chosen to be believed…as truth and law.

The people who wish to blame all of the world’s disasters on LGBTQ people should take a second and look at themselves. Let me flip the tables. Maybe God sent the hurricanes to punish you for the vile way you treat LGBTQ people. Maybe the hurricanes are your punishment for dragging God’s name into your own hateful ideals of who deserves what. Maybe the hurricanes are actually that still small voice trying to speak to you “on the wind,” but your hatred is preventing you from hearing it.

Regardless, you're wrong. Neither I nor any members of the LGBTQ community caused the devastation of Harvey or Irma. God is not punishing anyone. And how arrogant is it that anyone would claim to know God’s actions? Hurricanes happen. (Hello…global warming.) Gay is human. Love is love. Gay rights are human rights.

As for using passages from the Bible to get a point across, John 13:34 (KJV) says, “A new commandment I give unto you: that ye love one another. As I have loved you, that ye also love one another.” 

None of us needs that still small voice to tell us to love each other. But even if it did, I don’t know how many of us would hear it.

The Lightening Power of Laughter

Sometimes it only takes a bit of laughter. Even the witches of Eastwick knew the power of laughter.

I've been down the dark rabbit hole of misery for much of the past week. Okay, why stop at just a week. I've been in that hole for the better part of this year. I seem to fall into it with more frequency and with much ease nowadays. I'm familiar with feeling sorry for myself and with the wallowing that comes with it. As much as I don't want to be a victim I play the victim quite often. I would rather play the dashing socialite that is impeccably dressed (even in jeans and a t-shirt), whose presence is desired where ever he may be. But alas, it is the self-perceived, undesirable victim that I most often play. Although, I'm still pretty well dressed. Even victims can have style.

The words "I hate people" often exit my mouth on the breath of an exhale. But I know that I need people. I don't really hate them. It's the behavior of many who crowd this crazy, sexy, dirty, gray, radiant, glamorous metropolis that I call home that I really hate.

Last night as I sat in a garden with friends and a stranger telling stories, I wasn't miserable. I wasn't sad. I was happy, content, cold! Glass after glass of wine or beer was filled, emptied, and filled again. The contents of a bowl of Seven Layer Dip were demolished as chip after chip scooped up the goods like a backhoe removing dirt. I was talking, listening, laughing. At one point I was laughing so hard I couldn't breathe. And the coughing started. You know, the coughing: when you're laughing so hard that you can't catch your breath and you start to cough. I had to stop laughing and make myself take deep breaths: in through the nose, out through the mouth. That laughter was wonderful though, even as my lungs burned. I was enjoying the human interaction that we humans are on the planet to enjoy. The interactions that I don't get when I'm down that rabbit hole, isolating. I had forgotten the lightening power of laughter.

Life changes. There is always something that we wish we had done, or wish we were doing. It's up to us to either do those things or find the joy in what it is we are actually doing. I'm currently binging Parenthood on Netflix. I often make myself feel guilty that I'm not taking advantage of everything my City has to offer. But truthfully, I really enjoy sitting on my sofa watching Parenthood. That guilt is so self-inflicted that I should wear a body condom to protect myself from its infection.

As I write this, I'm sitting at my desk listening to the cast recording of the musical Come From Away. It's a 9/11 story. A tale of fear, sadness, compassion, and friendship. This day is heavy. I may never forget what I was doing on that morning 16 years ago when my sister finally got through to me on the phone and informed me of the devastation that was happening outside my window.

As I write this, I'm thinking about my mom and how I wish I could feel her arms around me right now. Sometimes a mother's hug is all one needs to comfort him. I think about how often I don't indulge in her hug when I have the opportunity. This train of thought inevitably leads down the track of impending loss toward that someday (hopefully many years from now) when I will no longer be able to feel her arms around me. My sigh is loud and as heavy as the day. I sent her a text to tell her I love her.

Change can happen in an instant. We can all attest to that. I don't laugh enough. I'm really hard on myself. I wait for things to happen instead of making things happen. Life may seem like it's long but it isn't. It's already September and just yesterday it was June. Time is flying. My waiting and isolating and not laughing only makes what little of it there is miserable.

I have to live. I have to live. I have to live. I am here. I am breathing. I am alive. I have any opportunity I want. I can make choices. I can play the victim or I can write myself a new role. I am here. I have to live.

Laughter was indeed my best medicine. But with medicine, one has to take it in order to feel better, to heal. In order to heal, to feel better, to enjoy my life I need to laugh more. I need to spend more time with my friends. I need to speak the stories instead of just writing them. My sofa will still be there when I want to binge the next television show. But laughing with people is different that laughing at the television.

I've been too heavy lately. It's time for the lightness.

Withdrawing Into Isolation

I am alone. Not literally. I live in a city of 8 million yet I am alone. In that aloneness I am isolated. By choice I am isolated. My intention with this isolation: unclear. I’m living vicariously through the characters of my favorite television shows and through those in the world created in the book I’m currently reading. I’m comfortable hidden behind my own walls. 

My social media has been disconnected. My phone is on Do Not Disturb. I do not want to deal with the world. I do not want the world to deal with me.

I have cut off most of my friends. I have cut off my family. Do they know it? I don’t know. I have chosen to fade from their view. Is it in the hopes that they will recognize that I am no longer there and reach out? Maybe. (How childish) But honestly, I don’t want any of them to see me…like this. For I see myself as a floundering man who has been down this road—what is it, depression ?—before and in their imagined faces I see the look of recognition, that look of here we go again. In their imagined whispers I hear them actually saying, “Here he goes again,” as they take a ragged breath and plaster on a smile before opening the door and embracing me.

Is any of this true? The feeling of aloneness and the isolation is true. The feeling of depression is true. (Although I’m probably just blue, dejected, forlorn. Or maybe as Blanche Devereaux put it, I'm magenta.) The rest could be true. Or maybe it's part of the grand illusion of storytelling that I do so well. I recount stories about my life all of the time: the good, the bad, the ugly, the funny. I make up stories of fiction in an attempt to entertain. I also tell myself stories that may or may not be true. Is it a coping mechanism? Are these stories a way of dealing with my own bullshit? Are they a protective shield that prevents me from being vulnerable in front of the people I love most, (or the one who could love me most), or the people that could help me most? 

I am embarrassed to be this person. 

I’m angry and holding grudges. I’m hurt. I’m cold as stone. Yet I’m so sad...that I ache. I have a large personality that usually doesn’t go unnoticed. Yet I want to fade away. 

I cannot seem to accept that asking for help is not a sign of weakness. It feels like weakness. I know that the stronger man knows when to ask for help but it still feels like weakness. Maybe I’m the weaker for sitting alone in my isolation. I’ve been a social butterfly for much of my life yet the idea of fluttering my wings right now doesn’t bring me joy. I would rather sleep. To sleep is to forget even if it’s for just a moment. To sleep is peace, if only briefly. Am I empty? Why am I here? 

Is self-pity in black and white? The role of victim that I have written for myself?

I attempt to put on a smile and pretend that everything is okay. That’s difficult for a person who wears his heart on his sleeve. I’ve never been good at hiding my feelings. 

The sound waves that carry information about my daily life have become radio silent. I am not Rohrering. I am whimpering. 

I feel as if I’m too afraid to live yet too scared to die.