On true love.

I wanted to write an epic post about homosexuality and religion one day, full of research and back up and such, but today, in an email discussion with one of my favorite people who happens to be gay, he wrote something that broke my heart and I had to blog it. He was explaining what it was like to grow up gay in a churched family, how he'd fight it, pretend it wasn't there, how he forced himself to date girls as a teenager and when that didn't work, how he committed to staying single for the rest of his life and how horrible that felt.

And then he said, "Then, I left God. I wanted nothing to do with him or the bible. If he was going to create me- a creature destined to hell- I wanted nothing to do with him."

I know some Christians (ok fine, a lot of Christians) believe that homosexuality is a choice. And yet, while those of you who are heterosexual cringe at the thought of being with somebody of the same sex, you fail to realize that you haven't made that choice. You never decided to be heterosexual. Did you? And if you feel you did, are you attracted to the opposite sex?

Recently, after piling up my horribly failed relationships, the abuse, the betrayals and being used, I considered trying out the gay thing. I thought since I fail so horribly at hetero relationships maybe I was a lesbian and didn't know it. But in spite of all of the beautiful lesbian women I know all around me, I just can't bring myself to be attracted to them. Given my terrible history with men, it kind of sucks, but I really can't choose to be gay, even if I wanted to. Obviously, I hope this paragraph is taken with the lighthearted tone I intended. Regardless though, I really can't see being gay as a choice.

In a way, if you compare it to a food you absolutely despise, it's kind of a choice. Your body is repulsed by it, but you're not really physically intolerant or allergic, right? You could, in theory, hold your nose, cram it down your throat and flush it down with some sort of strong tasting beverage, right? But what kind of life would that be if you did that for love?

So here is where religion fails, well, at least one place where it fails: when a person is born a certain way and religion tells them they are doomed to hell, regardless of who they are, what they do, how much they fight against whatever it is they were born with and how much they love God. Religion fails when people are told they aren't good enough for God, that their love for God is not good enough for God. Religion fails catastrophically when people who believe in God and love God reject Him because they can't fit into the religious picture of what a Christian ought to be.

In a sermon I heard on Easter Sunday, my favorite pastor said all you need is Jesus. Not Jesus plus something else, just Jesus. Not Jesus plus baptism or Jesus plus church every Sunday. Just Jesus alone. So why do so many Christians say, "Just Jesus... and repent your homosexuality"?

There are treatments for "un-gayifying" a person, and while I'd like to believe that we all know that deep down, you can't cure gay, the Christians who undergo these programs come out saying what they think everybody wants to hear.

But that's not what I want to hear.

Even if it goes against religion hardcore, I still want to hear Christians say, "God created me this way and God loves me and I will honor God by loving the person He created in me." Even if the person God created happened to be gay.

If God created a person to be homosexual, it wasn't an accident. God knows. God is. So how can it be unexpected?

In the sermon on the mount in Luke Ch 6, Jesus tells us to love those who are hardest to love. Love your enemies. Love those who won't love you in return. Give to those whom you know will never repay you. Love them all. And for a Christian, especially a conservative Christian, aren't homosexuals among the hardest to love?

Maybe, if you listen to Jesus and reach out in love, you'll see the love you're missing out on. I love my homosexual friends. I think they're some of the most amazing and passionate people and are easily the most beautiful souls I've ever met. They truly are. They are so loving and honest. It never even occurred to me not to love them. They are just too awesome.

Is homosexuality a sin? If you're gay, that's something you have to come to terms with. If you're not gay, it's not for you to judge. "He who is without sin among you, let him throw a stone at her first," Jesus said in John Ch 8:7. And He says it again in Matthew Ch 7:3-5, and Luke Ch 6:41-42. We're all sinners and until we sort out our own sins, who are we to point out the sins of others? More often than not, we're even worse sinners than they are.

So let's work on ourselves first. Let's clean up our own act. Let's strive for real righteousness through the love of Jesus. And while we're authentically repenting and growing towards being sinless, only then will we realize that we just can't do it. We just can't.

Isaiah Ch 64:6 says, "But we are all like an unclean thing, And all our righteousnesses are like filthy rags." If everything we strive for in an effort to please God ends up like filthy rags, what's stopping us from loving people? What makes your rags better than mine? What makes your rags better than a homosexual's? Has a homosexual ever judged you as harshly as you've judged them? What makes your rags so righteous?

Think about it.

And then remember in Matthew Ch 28:19-20, Jesus said:
19"Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age."

And we can't forget what He commanded in John Ch 13:34:
34 "A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another. 35 "By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another."

So let's.