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?

Death Does Not Become Me

I've been thinking a lot about death lately. Okay, not just lately. It’s more like I think about death every day. It's kind of a constant presence in my life. I carry it on my back like a cloak. It’s invisible, but it isn’t light. Thoughts of death are very heavy.

I can’t remember a time when I wasn’t afraid of dying. Maybe it’s not the dying as much as it’s the fear of what comes after. I’ve been aware of a place called Hell for as long as I’ve been able carry a tune. And believe me, that’s a long time.

You see, I was raised in a religious environment where I was cautioned on the unimaginable fiery pit of Hell — or Lake of Fire. I was warned of a judgment day and of how if my name wasn’t found in the Book of Life I would be cast into that pit — that waterless lake — to writhe and burn for eternity. Eternity. That’s forever. Burning. Consumed but not. Feasted on by maggots. Consumed but not. Tormented by demons. No peace. Only anguish. And the falling. Hell, I also remember it being said, is bottomless. So, there would never be nothing but burning, gnawing, writhing, torment, and falling.

Hell scared the shit out of me as a child. 

I was educated early in the redemptive power of Jesus Christ. How he, and only he, could save my soul from eternal damnation. All I had to do was ask him into my heart to save my soul from Hell. By doing so, I would be granted entrance into Heaven where I would live for eternity in a mansion of my own in the golden street suburbs of a Utopia that I couldn’t begin to fathom. And I asked him. Then I had to believe that he actually did it. That he saved my soul from Hell.  As a child I imagined Jesus — he looked like the images that appeared in my Bible (white man, beard, compassionate expression, a nice post facial glow) — sitting on a throne in my chest. He was in my heart after all. I had asked him to come inside, and I believed he had accepted my invitation. He had to be sitting there. I didn’t quite know how, but I believed. Ah, the faith of a child.

As I got older my attraction to men began to surface from the dark shadows of my deepest desires. I began to realize that I was homosexual. Wait. What? Homosexual? How was that going to work? As long as I had know about Heaven and Hell I had known that a homosexual was not going to be granted entrance into Heaven. I mean, the Bible said so and I was taught to believe those words without challenge.

Revelations, chapter 21, verse 8: But the cowardly, the unbelieving, the vile, the murderers, the sexually immoral, those who practice magic arts, the idolaters and all liars—they will be consigned to the fiery lake of burning sulfur.

As a homosexual many will say I fall into the category of the sexually immoral. I might also be considered cowardly if you take into account all of my fears. Then, of course, there’s the option of denying my homosexuality, which would make me a liar. Sheesh.

My thoughts of death —or the afterlife — beget quite a damper on my present life. I am alive but I’m not really living. I fear that fiery pit every single day that I breathe. I find no comfort in the fact that I asked Christ into my heart to save me from that place. I find no comfort in the fact that God is said to have created man in his image and here I am created homosexual...in his image, right? These things don’t match up for me. It’s almost as if I believe I can only have one or the other. I can be a homosexual, live my life, find happiness here on Earth ending up in Hell Or I can fight my desires and deny everything I feel in the hopes that I will find my name in that Book and get to walk through those pearly gates.

I know that not every Christian feels that homosexuals will not see the Kingdom of Heaven. But many do. America — and the world — has made great progress in the area of LGBTQ rights and overall acceptance in the past few years. But even now there are those who are pleased to see our rights being rolled back or at least being attempted to be rolled back. Being a Christian means being Christlike. I have to ask: How is discrimination and violence against a minority group in the name of God Christlike?

As a homosexual, I have lived my life under the shadow of fear for as long as I can remember. First it’s Hell. Then it’s bullies on the playground. Then it’s bullies in high school. Then it’s AIDS. Then it’s fear of familial rejection. Then it’s narrow-minded people who somehow feel better about themselves when they call me names. Then it’s the Americans who currently feel emboldened to stand strong against me on the grounds of religious beliefs.

LGBTQ people have decided that enough is enough and are now very visible. Because of that, narrow-minded people feel persecuted and oppressed. I’m sorry, but give me a break. Oppressed? I’ve felt oppressed since I realized I was homosexual. They’re not oppressed. They just don’t understand same-sex attraction. And they often get hung up on that "dirty," "nasty" sex I enjoy with a man. If they just thought about it in terms of when they realized who they were attracted to and that we realize it the same way an amazing epiphany might happen. But alas, many would rather just think of me as immoral. I’m not. 

When I came out to him even my father responded that he believes what the Bible says. In that moment I was so relieved that he said he loved me and that I was welcome in his home that I didn’t ask him what he meant. To this day I don’t know. Does he merely believe, per the Bible, that my homosexuality is wrong? Or does he believe, per the Bible, that I won’t be joining him in Heaven? Maybe I don’t want to know. Maybe I don't need to know. I can’t quite understand how people can still believe that homosexuality is a choice instead of the way we’re born. Believing it’s a choice is the choice. Not accepting what homosexuals tell you about when they knew they were homosexual is a choice. But I’m off topic.

I’m often angry. It stems from the rhetoric that was used to oppress me as a child. I was scared into believing something that still affects me negatively today. I can’t seem to release the fear. I can’t seem to release the anger.

I find no comfort in my past invocation. I have no faith. I do not trust. 

I don’t know if Hell is a real place, or if we live in hell every day here on Earth. I don’t know if Heaven is a real place either, or if it’s a story of a beautiful paradise made up to comfort us in our time of need when a loved one has died. 

Hell continues to scare the shit out of me. 

And my fear of death does not become me. It hampers me. It stifles me. It limits me. Living my life to its fullest would become me more. I just can't quite step into the sun and leave my shadows behind.

Resolving the Conflict Starts With Me

A few days ago I read Kevin Thornton’s HuffPost blog, “I Was a Teenage Fundamentalist: How I Resolved the Conflict Between Jesus and My Sexuality.” (You should read his before you read mine.) I was immediately taken with his ability to draw such a distinct portrait of my life. I mean, he doesn’t even know me, yet there I was beginning to take shape in the words I was reading. I knew he was telling his own story (and that his story, like mine, is not unique), but the similarities were uncanny…at least through the first paragraph. 

Churchgoer…check. Singer of the Baptist hymn Just As I Am…check. Early 90s…check. Dark secret…check. He’s from small-town Southern Indiana I’m from small-town Kentucky. There I was coming into focus. I was standing in front of my pew in the church building where I attended worship services with multiple members of my family, singing my heart out for Jesus, concealing my truth, hiding my secret, scared to be me.

I had no one to talk to about any of the desires and feelings that were bubbling just under the surface, struggling for freedom, trying to take a breath in the light. I couldn’t talk to my pastor who would pound on his pulpit while his raised voice told me of the fire and brimstone that God rained down on the Sodomites of Sodom and Gomorrah for their sins — the major sin being homosexuality. (Uh oh. He’s talking about me. I’m beginning to feel those homosexual desires.) I couldn’t talk to my friends at the time because they would just as easily call me queer or sissy as come to my birthday party (then call me queer or sissy at the birthday party). I couldn’t talk to my parents. Oh no. I didn’t trust them to understand or accept that their son was gay. (I didn’t know what my parents would do with the information, but I was so riddled with fear that I couldn’t find out.) So I kept pushing those desires and feelings down, keeping them at bay. I was tormented, alone, scared.

I never experienced any “pray away the gay” organizations like Thornton’s referenced Exodus Ministries. But I spent more time on my knees behind the closed door of my bedroom, crying, pleading, begging, praying to not be gay than I can even remember. I created my own hell of trying to “pray the gay away.” The gay feelings never went away though. I attended worship services three times a week. I prayed. I sang. I had asked Jesus into my heart and believed my soul was saved from eternal damnation in hell. But I was still gay. Those homosexual desires never changed except to grow stronger. 

Thornton says that going away to college saved his life. I never thought of college as saving my life. That’s probably because it took so long for me to start living my life after I got there. Getting there did help. It got me out of my small town. It opened my eyes to other ideas and beliefs. It helped me start questioning and forming my own opinions. I was drawn to and surrounded by people living the life I wanted to be living — I was on the five-year plan with a double major in Performing Arts and Advertising — but still it took me until the summer before my fifth year to finally achieve enough courage to come out. I didn’t get to college and suddenly find my freedom. I was thinking differently, yes, but I still felt the heat of that fire and brimstone keeping me restrained. The truth is: I still feel the chains that want me bound to those beliefs that were so rigidly instilled in me in my youth. I’m still afraid of that fire and brimstone hell.

I’ve recently come to realize that that scared child is still very present inside me, and he’s been responsible for many of the fear-based choices I’ve made in my life. He’s also very responsible for the fears that I still allow to prevent me from living my adult gay life to the fullest without concern of parental disappointment and eternal damnation. And unlike Thornton, I never really resolved my conflict with God. It’s a struggle, and I’m trying, but right now I feel as if I’m stepping away from God completely so that I can come back on my own terms with my own goals for our relationship. I should have done this years ago, but fear (like I learned in the pew of my church building) is something that is used to keep one in line and therefore holds one back. 

Communication is the way Thornton says he resolved his situation. I believe in the power of communication. But with communication can also come disappointment. One has to find the courage to hear even as he finds the steadiness to speak. I recently took a huge step out of my comfort zone and shared, for the first time, my childhood feelings of fear and loneliness with my mom. I shared how afraid I was, how untrusting. I opened that door before I even realized I was turning the knob. I’m in my 40s now, but it’s never too late to start a dialogue. It’s hard for me not to feel as though I’ve wasted a lot of my life living in fear, but I also believe there is truth to the universe presenting things to you when you are ready to accept them. 

Not long ago a friend of mine presented me with the concept of getting my hands dirty. Holding back and not communicating, at least with my mom, was me not getting my hands dirty, not rocking the boat, even at times being a victim. I realize now I was more afraid of being disappointed in her possible answers or responses, than I was afraid of having the conversation. I may never change the mind of someone who believes that homosexuality is wrong, but there is no comfort, no freedom, in living in silence or fear. There’s just avoidance. Even a baby step forward is a step forward. I’m glad mom and I took that step together.

As you might have noticed, that portrait of me that Thornton began drawing with such seemingly definitive strokes veered into Monet territory — recognizable from a distance, fuzzier upon closer examination. There’s still conflict in my life between God and my sexuality. That’s based on deep-rooted religious fears more than anything else. There’s still conflict between my family and my sexuality. That will probably never change, but I know I’m loved. What can change is me. That scared inner child has to grow up and face his fears. I have to be willing to speak…and hear. I have to change my expectations. I have to change my pattern. I have to believe that “just as I am” is good enough.

Another Gay Man's Reaction to Chris Broussard

This blog also appears on HuffPost Gay Voices

Words affect us. They can hurt us. They can give us strength. They can positively reinforce or negatively tear us down. They can inspire us to action or cause a reaction.

Positive Reinforcement. “I'm a 34-year-old NBA center. I'm black. And I'm gay.” In a country where many place professional athletes on the highest of pedestals, NBA Basketball player Jason Collins did a brave thing when he said those words. We have yet to see the impact they will have on his NBA career, but regardless, it took courage, especially when he has so far to fall. In a society that is fickle enough to love you one minute and turn on you the next, Mr. Collins faced his fear and embraced his life. Hopefully, his coming out will be an example that living in truth is better than living in fear of truth.

Negative Tear Down. In our slowly evolving society we still have too many people willing to publicly denounce homosexuals with verbal criticisms. On the program “Outside The Lines,” ESPN reporter Chris Broussard became another to voice his opinion on the matter. He said, “Personally, I don’t believe that you can live an openly homosexual lifestyle...if you’re openly living that type of lifestyle, then the Bible says ‘you know them by their fruits’ It says that, you know, that’s a sin.” He went on to say, “And if you’re openly living in unrepentant sin, whatever it may be, not just homosexuality--adultery, fornication, premarital sex between heterosexuals--whatever it may be, I believe that’s walking in open rebellion to God.” 

The day after making the above statements, Mr. Broussard spoke via phone with the hosts of the radio program “Breakfast Club” on New York’s Power 105.1. As a basis for his beliefs he cited Biblical passages from First Corinthians and Romans in the New Testament, as well as, from the Book of Leviticus in the Old Testament. He did make a point of saying that not all Old Testament laws (e.g. not wearing blended fabrics, not eating shrimp) carried forward in the new covenant made in the New Testament. To which I had to question, Why cite Leviticus at all in this matter? Then I remembered we’re dealing with people who have their go-to passages for proving homosexuality is wrong.

Mr. Broussard must not have a problem with those NBA players who have tattoos. I mean the Bible does state in Leviticus 19:28 “Do not cut your bodies for the dead or put tattoo marks on yourselves. I am the Lord.” That looks like a direct quote from God himself. Then there’s Leviticus 20:10 “If a man commits adultery with another man’s wife, both the adulterer and the adulteress must be put to death.” We wouldn’t even consider doing that today. As for First Corinthians, in Chapter 7:32-35 Paul suggests we stay single so we can focus on God without the distraction marriage brings. Paul’s words, not God’s. I’m not using these verses to make fun of Mr. Broussard, I’m using them to point out that we can’t pick and choose what we’re going to follow then ignore the rest.

With the right afforded every person who lives in this country to speak his mind, I acknowledge that Mr. Broussard has every right to speak his. He can do so privately or publicly if he desires, but come on. To quote “Aibileen” from the film The Help “Ain’t you tired, Miss Hilly? Ain’t you tired?”

Reaction. To all those out there who sometimes act like superior human beings I ask, “Ain’t you tired?” I’m tired. I’m tired of conservative, heterosexual Christians like Mr. Broussard saying they’re okay with gay people, but think we should constantly fight against our same-sex attraction. 

When I began to experience attraction, I was drawn to men. It’s wired in my DNA. Fighting those feelings would be like fighting the urge to drink water when I’m dehydrated. I can’t accept that the God I believe in wants that. Homosexuals are born. We’re not recruited, or converted, and we don’t make a choice. We exist as homosexuals from birth; trying to understand our feelings as we hit puberty in a society that often tells us we are not normal. If it’s not normal for homosexuals to be born homosexual, then why does God allow us to keep being born?

I refuse to believe I was born with a disadvantage; expected every day to fight against my same-sex attraction in order to please God. This expectation that I should fight my attraction to men comes from members of society who fear what they don’t understand. I’ve never once thought I should be disappointed in God for making me gay. I've questioned it, yes, but I haven't been disappointed, and I don’t think God is disappointed in me. I also don’t think I’m living in open rebellion to him. God is the higher power with understanding beyond that of the human mind. 

Heterosexuals are not the chosen few who get to participate in and enjoy a sex life. We gay men are not supposed to be sitting alone in a corner somewhere crying, wishing we could be dancing with the hot guy sitting across from us. We’re supposed to be dancing with him. 

Every gay person who continues to come out and live their lives, regardless of the threat of discrimination, hate speech, family rejection, and condemnation based on religious laws, is braver than anyone who will quote the Bible as their reason for stating another person’s life is wrong. We’re supposed to love our neighbor as we love ourselves and loving ourselves starts with accepting ourselves. If that includes being gay, then we have to strive to be true to ourselves, love ourselves, live our lives, and love who we love.

Thank you, Jason Collins for being another man to show us that living our lives in our truth is important; you’re an inspiration. And thank you, Mr. Broussard for showing us, once again, the hypocritical side of many of today’s Christians.