Bishop Gene Robinson: How Religion Is Killing Our Most Vulnerable Youth
Just as many gay kids grow up in these conservative denominations as any other. They are told day in and day out that they are an abomination before God. Just consider the sheer numbers of LGBT kids growing up right now in Roman Catholic, Mormon, and other conservative religious households. The pain and self-loathing caused by such a distortion of God's will is undeniable and tragic, causing scars and indescribable self-alienation in these young victims.
You don't have to grow up in a religious household, though, to absorb these religious messages. Not long ago I had a conversation with six gay teens, not one of whom had ever had any formal religious training or influence. Every one of them knew the word "abomination," and every one of them thought that was what God thought of them. They couldn't have located the Book of Leviticus in the Bible if their lives depended on it yet they had absorbed this message from the antigay air they breathe every day.
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It is not enough for good people -- religious or otherwise -- to simply be feeling more positive toward gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people. Tolerance and a live-and-let-live attitude beats discrimination and abuse by a mile. But it's not enough. Tolerant people, especially tolerant religious people, need to get over their squeamishness about being vocal advocates and unapologetic supporters of LGBT people. It really is a matter of life and death, as we've seen.
I learned this in my dealing with racism. It's not enough to be tolerant of other races. I benefit from a racist society just by being white. I don't ever have to use the "n" word, treat any person of color with discourtesy, or even think ill of anyone. But as long as I am not working to dismantle the systemic racism that benefits me, a white man, at the expense of people of color, I am a racist. And my faith calls me to become an anti-racist -- pro-active, vocal, and committed.
Actually, what I see if LGBT getting Christians reach out to them, and getting their hands slapped instead.
Because they refuse to see what the Bible actually says.
Sure, you can read the oft quoted "A man shall not lie with a man as with a woman." And some people like to use just scripture like that, almost as a weapon.
Do you know what the word
heresy means? It comes from the word "to choose" as in you pick and choose what Bible verses you follow. And I've seen this work both ways, LGBT trying to justify their lifestyle as not sinful by selecting verses, these other people using verses to condemn them.
But we must understand what the Bible is really about.
Hebrews 13:1-5
1 Keep on loving one another as brothers and sisters.
2 Do not forget to show hospitality to strangers, for by so doing some people have shown hospitality to angels without knowing it. 3 Continue to remember those in prison as if you were together with them in prison, and those who are mistreated as if you yourselves were suffering. 4 Marriage should be honored by all, and the marriage bed kept pure, for God will judge the adulterer and all the sexually immoral. 5 Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have, because God has said, “Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you.”
In the same breath it condemns sexual immorality, and tells people to show hospitality and that Jesus will never forsake.
James 4:12
12 There is only one Lawgiver and Judge, the one who is able to save and destroy. But you—who are you to judge your neighbor?
This can go both for the Pharisaic "Christian" who judges LGBT people, and the LGBT person who has already decided the Church is their enemy. Judging is a two-way street.
John 8:7-11
7When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, “Let any one of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.”
8 Again he stooped down and wrote on the ground. 9 At this, those who heard began to go away one at a time, the older ones first, until only Jesus was left, with the woman still standing there. 10 Jesus straightened up and asked her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?” 11 “No one, sir,” she said. “Then neither do I condemn you,” Jesus declared. “Go now and leave your life of sin.”
Jesus spoke out about alot of things, but would not be okay with condemning people.
Now here, this passage is often cut as an example that LGBT people are doomed.
1 Corinthians 6:9-10
9 Or do you not know that wrongdoers will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor men who have sex with men 10 nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.
I guess that's it then. LGBT can't go to Heaven. Right? No. See, this is my point, you lose the meaning if you just search quotes out of context. The very next verse, please.
11 And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.
Yay, so no problem right? Well, read the verse right after.
12 “I have the right to do anything,” you say—but not everything is beneficial. “I have the right to do anything”—but I will not be mastered by anything.
Gay sex is fine if you can understand that it is a sin, and understand that you are forgiven of sins. But if you have unsafe sex, if you sleep around, you will get STDs. This is not God judging you, this is "not everything is beneficial."
LGBT ppl ought to see that while some "Christians" will judge them, others simply want them to make healthy decisions. Unsafe sex tends to give you pretty nasty problems.
