As I grew, and hopefully matured, I started to realize that we did once live in this evil, hateful world. Not accepting those that were different than us was once normal. But, through a man with a dream, and a million people with a passion, we began to break down those walls put up against minorities. While those walls are not completely gone and equality granted freely to any human being, we have started the path to freedom. And of that I am proud.
Yet as I age and I meet many amazing and interesting people, who's lives and stories are heartening, heartbreaking and astonishing, I am stricken by the social injustice the modern person puts towards those within the minorities today. I have many smart, thoughtful, loving, moral friends that are homosexual, not by choice, not by some arbitrary decision, but by birth. These people are hard working, friendly, caring people who are marginalized and oppressed by society every day. To me this is unconscionable, much the way we oppressed skin color minorities in the past we oppress the sexual minorities today.
Many quote the Bible in their attacks against Homosexuality. They use scripture to hate and hurt those who would never choose to hurt them back. They believe that God somehow said to hate the homosexuals, that at some point the Bible said "God Hates Fags." This hatred, this cruelty is all done in God's name. And that burns me more than anything.
Christian belief is based on Jesus Christ's message in the New Testament. To be a Christian you have to believe that Christ is the Son Of God and the creator of the New Law that all Christians follow in place of the Old Testament's Laws. Jesus spoke many times, teaching his New Laws and his message of Love. He told of many rules, many moral guidelines, and in these discussions he told us of his greatest message. The most important rule he commands, that among the laws he taught, that the "greatest of these is Love."
Yet as modern Christians somehow the belief that love is the most important part of our existence is lost. Somehow along the way we decided that hate and oppression was the Lord's ultimate message. Yet I look at the Bible, I read Jesus's every word, red letters denoting God's Son's words, truly the ultimate law in Christianity. And you know what? Not once did Jesus speak out for hatred, not once did he denounce homosexuals. How do we find it okay to curse and damn other humans while holding the Bible? The only thing I have read in the Bible that Jesus ever spoke out against was hatred, greed and a fig tree that didn't produce.
"But, silly writer! What about the Old Testament?! Didn't it say that God hates homosexuals?" I have to say kind of, the Old Testament said that God didn't like the act of Homosexuality. But let us look contextually, as we learned in grade school. In Leviticus it said that you should be killed if you were gay, but a couple verses after said you should be killed for shaving your beard and that you cannot wear clothing of mixed threads.As Christians we believe the Jesus' teachings in the New Testament supersedes the laws of the Old Testament. And you know what? Not once did Jesus ever speak against Homosexuals. Seeing as how Jesus put the Christ in Christian I feel his was a greater commandment to Christians than that of the Old Testament's writers.
This is why I support my LGBT friends, those brave enough to accept who they are in spite of the attacks, the narrow mindedness, the hatred that comes from all around. They are strong, caring people standing tall against the gales of hatred sent from the conservative side.
As a straight man I have never faced the attacks put against these good people. I have never felt the pain they endure at the hands of hateful people, and I have never dealt with the ridicule put upon them. I can only feel a fraction of their pain when I see them tormented, and that fraction is overwhelming.
If you truly are a Christian you cannot support the hatred put against Homosexuals. Never once did Jesus tell man to hate even one person. Shame on those who use the Bible to promote cruelty and hatred. They are no better than Fred Phelps and his gang. The only F word Jesus ever cursed was Figs.
