One of the most beautiful days of my life was the day that I reconciled my belief in God with the fact that I'm gay. Unfortunately I can't take a red marker out and circle the day on the calendar as I can't really pinpoint it. I've discussed everything here except my individual spiritual beliefs so I thought I'd touch on it a bit or even grope it seductively if you will.
I'm not typing this blog post from home. Wednesday night after work I left New York to come to my parent's house in here Virginia Beach or as I call it "Jesus' summer home". My parents are super religious Pentecostal/Apostolics who are registered democrats but actually voted for Bush in the last election because they didn't wanna "go to hell for supporting that mess", that mess being the gay marriage issue that Kerry supported. My question is, what about all the other mess you are supporting by voting for Bush, like war, murder, genocide, etc? But none of that stuff matters as long as the faggots can't get married. How they ended up with me, the gay blogger as their kid is evidence of God's sense of humor. Statements like that are quite commonplace coming from religious folks like my parents. That's why even though I believe in God, I don't believe in organized religion, church, church folks (I don't date them either, read about that in this post), or Presidents Bush.
I've spent the last few days readying myself to not speak of the big pink jeweled elephant that is my sexuality while I'm in the state of Virginia. This is how we get along. We all know but we don't talk about it. It's our coping mechanism. It's dysfunctional but it works for us. I think that our silence is born of mutual respect for each other. Because if we had a big argument and told each other how we really feel we'd probably never speak again. I've learned that some things are better left unsaid and even if they do say something off color not necessarily directed at me I brush it off. They're older people, it's force of habit, they were conditioned to believe these things. They don't know any better.
In spite of what people like my parents think about me being gay I still believe that God loves me and is with me just like anyone else. As easy as it would be for me to be a "gay-thiest" like my friend Lawrence ("Gay-thiest" is term I use for a gay person who doesn't believe in God mostly as a knee jerk reaction of the church's distaste with homosexuality as opposed to making that decision purely of their own volition) I can't. Even though I totally get why the idea of God would be unattractive to a gay person. Look at the religious people who are supposed to be his representatives. They say that God is all about love, which I believe he is but it seems like all they ever speak about is hate. A shining example of that is the website GodHatesFags.com, put together by the slack-jawed evangelicals at Westboro Baptist Church of Topeka, Kansas (be sure to check out their whole series of retarded ass websites GodHatesAmerica.com, GodHatesCanada.com, and GodHatesSweden.com especially if you're looking for a good laugh or need to throw up today). They sound like hypocrites. I like you feel that almost orgasmic satisfaction when one of them are exposed for the phonies they are (Jim Bakker, Jimmy Swaggart, Larry Craig, etc), but they to me are just religious fanatical church people, they are not God. God is has blessed me so much and has been there with me, gay and all on a personal level from the beginning so much so that no Bible, book, or Bush can convince me otherwise. But in my effort to be totally objective and non judgmental I decided to explore the world of atheism.
I saw a post on a message board a while ago written by a fellow gay man, a supporter of EvilBible.com, an interesting website written by an atheist woman in an effort to "spread the vicious truth about the Bible". She proclaims that "the so called God of the Bible makes Osama Bin Laden look like a boyscout". Some of her points, though oddly fanatical, actually made a lot of sense. Namely where she said that the whole idea of God doesn't make sense. It wasn't a huge revelation to me though, I actually knew that already. Everything about God is based on faith, ya gotta believe it to receive it and if you don't believe it, what is there to talk about? The website is basically a character assault on the Bible, a book whose merits I'm not fully sold on anyway. I even checked out the American Atheists website which along with anti-Christian rhetoric gives instructions on how to have an atheist wedding and coming out to your family as an atheist. Sounding oddly familiar?
The thing that kills me about the Atheists and the Christians Evangelicals is how much alike they are. The Atheists, as much as they say they aren't, are religious too. Their religion is non-religion and they preach it and proselytize their non-gospel on the web just as much and with as much fervor as the Evangelicals do. They both have the attitude of "I'm right and you're wrong!" What confuses me about them is if they don't believe in God, why talk about him? He doesn't exist, right? So what's to talk about? What's to make a whole website about? It's like arguing the validity of Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny, it's crazy. If you don't believe in God, then just simply don't believe in God. I thought that the atheist websites would be cool, open, evolved and forward thinking. But they sound and even look a lot the websites for them crazy hicks at Westboro Baptist Church.
Whatever happened to live and let live? That's what I believe. I think that everyone should do what works for them as long they aren't hurting anyone else. As corny and cliche as this sounds I'm a spiritual person. I believe in God but that's my belief. I don't try to push my beliefs off on anybody. I'm even respectful of church folks like my parents and all of their crazy beliefs. Whatever you believe, at the end of the day just be sure to believe in yourself.
==========
Playing In The Background...
"If You Really Knew"
by Out Of Eden
from the album "No Turning Back"
==========
thanks for posting this i appreciate it alot people dont know but issues you talked about are what we face in reality i havent told anyone about my sexual perference in my family so im still on the other side of the fence but i think its because im not ready and i do have a lil fear but i feel people in general should treat people with respect no matter what your sexual perference is you are still a human doesnt the bible say treat others the way you wanna be treated? i could go back and forth arguing whether gay is right or wrong but some people dont realize who are we to judge i believe only god can judge me.
As a gay man, and an atheist [not a gay-theist], the reason why atheists spend so much time talking about god is because god is so common in our society. We don't talk about the Easter Bunny or Fairies because very few people actually believe these things. Religious views, based on the Bible, affect public policy, our views of right and wrong, and various social issues. People discriminate against "out" atheists, as they do "out" homosexuals. If god and religion weren't given such a 'sacred' place in society, we wouldn't waste our time criticizing and debating.
You completely blind-sided me with this post. I came here to watch you chart the confluence of ideas and actions that joined a gay/black/man or a black/gay/man with his god.
For whatever reason, lack of focus on your topic; a need to take pot-shots at the evangelic movement; or laziness; you decided to "explore the world of atheism," and why evangelical atheists create blogs to talk about god.
You end with the suggestion that we live and let live. This is unfair, especially as the "Comment" section of all blogs allow only for making nice with the blogger.
I am disappointed that a writer of your status would fall into that trap, never reread what you've written, and let it stand for all to read as the best you can do.