How Anti-Gay Christians Hurt Their Own Cause

Here are a few of the many ways in which those opposed to homosexuality ensure that others will never listen to them:


1) Drive-By Comments

There was a "drive by" once in the comment section of an article on Freedhearts (a pro-gay Christian blog). The commenter expressed the notion that the bible forbade same-sex relationships (which it doesn't, apparently--here are the Resources on that same site, for clarity), then said that he "wasn't here to argue"--on a site where that notion is VERY debatable, to say the least!
I and many others went round and round with him. I told him that it wasn't fair that he got to express his opinion, while others didn't get to express theirs, hence the "not arguing." That he just wanted us to sit there and take what he was saying as the truth, without listening to our side of things, and that that wasn't right or fair.
He conceded that point, to his credit. I really do believe that he had good intentions, but intentions aren't magical, and he was being unintentionally condescending. He also lost a lot of my respect when he hid behind the "don't look at me, God said it," excuse. I will tackle this excuse later, but basically, he's not going to morally disagree with God (which he very well could do), so he totally IS saying it as well. He also would probably not change his mind even if God told him otherwise.
It's not "clear" that God is against equality or human rights. No one is denying or ignoring what they already know, and no one needs any "Truth" told to them, without the speaker at least listening to their side of things, as well.

2) Double Standards

He also said that it wasn't right to call anti-gay people homophobic, but that it was okay for him to say "abomination," because the bible said it too (he said these two things in the same comment).
If one is not going to agree to a common language, then there is no discussion to be had. About a year ago, I was surprised to find that a prominent Youtuber, who happens to be a Christian, did not like the term "Religion," so I determined not to use words which the other side might find objectionable (on purpose), even if I did believe they were technically accurate.
(By the way, shrimp is also referred as an abomination, along with wearing mixed fibers--I'm sure you've heard that cliche before. Let's at least stick to the New Testament, shall we?)

3) Intentionally Being Offensive

If you compare LGBTQ people to pedophiles or those who practice bestiality, we get offended. The reason we get offended is that you are calling us rapists. How would you feel, if you were called a rapist?
Pedophilia and bestiality are literally forms of rape, since children and animals cannot properly give consent. If you wish to be taken seriously by us, understand that we don't want to be compared to rapists, and don't compare us to rapists.
The reason that we are okay with homosexuality, but not rape (in its many forms), is consent. Consent is our sexual ethic. A consenting adult is not a rape victim. Remember this when engaging with us, and remember that we DO have a sexual ethic, just like you.
(Yes, I do have to say it, because some people don't get it--or just want to be offensive.)

4) Not Listening To Us

Finally, and this is the main offense (from which the other three derive), which is not wanting to listen to us. If you do not wish to listen to us, you cannot expect us to listen to you.
This comes most often, that I have seen, in the form of insisting that our sexual orientation is a "choice." Would you choose this, in the homophobic environment that you might have grown up in, and in a world where your basic rights are controversial, at best, and outright denied, at worst?
To insist that this is a choice is to ignore the thousands, if not millions, of stories, on the internet alone, from those for whom this is not a choice. And these are just the people who chose to share their stories. For every one story you read about, there are literally hundreds of others that are just like it or similar. 
No one, absolutely, NO ONE, would choose this. We are kicked out of our homes, beaten, raped, fired from our jobs, sometimes even murdered. No, we didn't choose this. You wouldn't choose this, so why do you think we are choosing it?
We do not choose our sexuality, or who we are. The reason we often choose to act on our sexuality, by finding a partner or spouse, is that we want love, just like you. Maybe you chose to find love, and we do the same. To condemn us for what you have done is not only unequal, but serves to alienate us and does not make us want to listen to you.
Listen to our stories, listen to us, and this will go a long way, even if we do not see eye to eye. (And by the way, thank you for reading this and thereby listening.)

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Christians: White Witches By Another Name

A few weeks ago, I found a copy of the first Harry Potter book in a thrift shop, and was thrilled to buy it. I had been afraid to read Harry Potter when it first became popular and I became aware of it, since I was attending a "mainstream" evangelical Christian school at the time and was taught that it was demonic. My third-grade teacher told us a horror story about a man in her church who wanted to know what it was about, and so started reading it, and...
"He became addicted to it!" she related in a horrified, conspiratorial whisper.
I realize now that what happened was that he started reading them in order to warn others about them, because he thought they were demonic, and then ended up changing his mind because he liked them. But at the time, I imagined spiritual shackles, bondage to sin, and his relationship with God suffering, taking a back seat, and even being severed. (Funny how I didn't hear about the "once saved, always saved" doctrine in the early 2000s, nearly as much as I do now...)
My grandmother on my father's side (the more liberal side of the family) asked my parents if she could buy Harry Potter books for me. My parents asked me if I wanted to read them. I said no. My mother thought that they were likely demonic, but she let me have the choice, which I am grateful for today. She trusted me to make my own decisions on spiritual matters, even at ten and eleven years old. But I couldn't fathom reading something that I thought my parents might disapprove of, much less something that I thought would jeopardize my relationship with God and pull me into worshiping Satan and committing witchcraft. I worried and prayed for my grandmother's soul (and this was only one reason why, unfortunately for me and my relationship to her).

But then a decade and a half later, I found myself an agnostic atheist, staring at a paperback copy of Harry Potter And The Sorcerer's Stone, for only twenty-five cents. I was surprised that the Catholic-owned charity shop, which gave away all their bibles for free, would sell it. I was sure that they wouldn't sell it in Harry Potter's heyday, probably would simply throw it in the trash, but as far as I know, all of the volunteers there are elderly, and someone may have forgotten how "bad" it was.
So I bought it, very eager to see what all the fuss was about, and I loved it. It was easier to read than most fantasy books I had come across, because it talked plainly of everyday life in our world (at first), with much whimsy and many keen observations about human behavior.
(I am onto the second book in the series, Harry Potter And The Chamber of Secrets, now. I guess I'm addicted, though my third-grade teacher wouldn't think much of my relationship to God today--though I don't think I would have a bad relationship to him or her, if God exists.)

A few days later, I got into a little...spat, on Facebook, with someone who was quite homophobic, and whose witnessing style consisted of literally threatening people with hell and "God's judgement." He took issue to my rainbow face, since it was just after the Supreme Court victory.
With one of his "friends," they ganged up on me, he asking me if I was Catholic as a Christian, and his "friend" at one point asking, "Were you saved, AJ? Do you believe that Jesus rose from the dead?"
That one really threw me for a loop. I had heard that line so many times, and would have even said it myself, if I had had the courage and not been a shy, homeschooled teenager. My first reaction was to roll my eyes.
My second reaction was different. It was a little painful for me to contemplate, since I tried so hard to get close to God and to please him (and I did not simply forget to say the sinners prayer and mean it, and I did not try to earn my salvation with works). If there is something to be saved from, and if sincerity counts for anything, I know I was, and am, saved.
That was the gist of my reply. What I didn't tell them was that a part of me, if God was real, was hurt that he had apparently let me just let me lose my faith, and possibly (if these people were right), my salvation. I had begged God to show himself to me, in fact, so that I could still believe in him.
The one with the more palatable witnessing style gave me the usual sales pitch, about how I could get close to God, with this little gem tacked on:

"You can be the man God wants you to be."

I started howling with laughter. I had always thought my short name was gender-neutral, and even feminine, with how many female characters on TV have that name, though I have yet to be taken for a woman. Yet that is what I am.
This homophobic person, basically, was saying that God wants me to be transgender!
I told them as much, and said that I was sorry, but I just couldn't stop laughing. The nice Christian "LOL-ed" along with me, but I don't think the angry dude ever forgave me for my comments (including that Jesus was bi), or for not getting saved then and there.
(What neither of them realized was that my pseudofaith is progressive Christian, not evangelical, so that if I got saved tomorrow, I would still be just as rainbow as ever, among other things--and they would still be worried about my soul, and we would still be arguing over the same exact things.)

I later saw the angry guy telling someone to stop smoking pot, because that was sorcery. I said hello to Angry Guy, and turned on the charm (if you know what I mean).
He said that if I got saved, God would deliver me from "the curse of being homo." I told him that that's not how it works, that many Christians struggle with homosexual feelings, even if they thought it was wrong. He then said this to me:

"stay cursed aj your not my problem." (sic)

He repeated the "stayed cursed" line once or twice within that same conversation. When I realized what he was doing, I was flabbergasted.
He was condemning someone else for "sorcery," then literally trying to use Jesus to put a curse on me! 
Suddenly Harry Potter didn't seem so bad anymore. I asked him why he was doing this, but got no response.
I am convinced that by "stay cursed," he didn't mean that he was okay with my being "homo," but that he wanted my life to be bad, and possibly that he wanted to consign me to hell (he sometimes even added "LOL" to his threats of fire and brimstone).
How is some Christians' "spiritual warfare" techniques not just like the "witchcraft" they condemn, in all its forms? The only difference is that they try to use Jesus, not demons, as they accuse many others of doing. They are trying to get power from spiritual forces, just as they accuse others of doing. The only difference that they believe their power is good, and more powerful than that of others--in other words, evangelical Christians are white witches by another name.
Yet what if Jesus doesn't want me to be cursed? What if he is not okay with people trying to use his power to curse others? I know I wouldn't be. Maybe they aren't "true" Christians, if they're doing this. "Lord, Lord, did we not drive out demons in your name...?"
"This may not be the last time you hear this," I said, "'I tell you the truth, I never knew you.'"

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The Silliest Question Christians Can Ask

My mother once related having breakfast with my grandparents, when my grandfather asked her, once again, to come to church with them. She said that she was busy, to spare his feelings, though really she does not care for their church.
It was before breakfast, and rather late in the morning, so my grandfather was apparently feeling crabby. "What are you going to say to your Maker on Judgment Day?" he asked.
"The bible doesn't say that Christians have to go to church for salvation," she said. She was probably nicer than I would have been, though I love my grandparents as much as I love my animals, and that's saying something.

But then I wondered, what does one say to an omniscient god? Wouldn't literally anything one could say be redundant?
"Well, God, I was a Christian for a long time..." I would begin.
"Yes, I know." 
"And I tried really hard to get close to you and to please you..."
"I know." 
"...but it just seemed like nothing ever worked..."
"I'm aware of that. I was there and I read your mind."
"So I finally started thinking that maybe the reason I couldn't get close to you, wasn't that I couldn't figure out what my sin was, and it wasn't that I wasn't spending enough time in prayer and bible study, and wasn't that my childhood toys were an idol, but was that you weren't there at all."
"But I was there." 
"Then why didn't you say anything?!"

When theists, usually Christians (in my experience), ask what nonbelievers will say on judgement day, they don't really expect an answer. And if God really is all-knowing, any answer I can give would just be repeating something that God already knows I will say.
When theists ask this question, what they are really doing is clearly issuing a threat. What they are really saying is, "God's going to get you!" And they wouldn't be arrogant enough to issue this threat if they actually had any "fear of God," and understood that they didn't have the authority to say or predict who would go to heaven, and who would go to hell. (My standard reply when someone tries to threaten people with hell is, "God? Is that you? No one else has the authority to say that, so maybe you DO exist!" I especially get upvoted when I post it as "Atheist Journeys.")
But if they can be so assured of their own salvation, then I can be assured of mine (if there is anything to actually be saved from, that is). I see many atheists defeat the Pascal's Wager argument with simple logic ("What if another god is real, instead of the Christian god?"), but the main reason I don't go for the Wager is simpler than that: I already have been a sincere, devout Christian.
Most modern evangelical Christians would subscribe to the "once saved, always saved" doctrine, though interestingly enough, it seems to be a relatively recent fad in church history--in the 1678 Christian morality play, Pilgrim's Progress, the protagonist actually loses his salvation (symbolized by a scroll, to be presented at heaven's gates after crossing the River of Death) at one point, and has to retrace part of his faith-journey. There is also plenty of evidence from both the Old and New Testaments of the bible that Christians can lose their salvation, and it is not entirely clear on when names are written in the Book of Life found in Revelation (whether when one "gets saved," or when one dies as a Christian, or before one is born, or some other time). I'm not sure what that means for my own potential salvation, but I also don't believe that there's anything to be saved from.
I believe that most Christians subscribe to the "once saved, always saved" doctrine in order to make themselves feel better, when they hear about atheists being former Christians. They can't lose their faith and therefore their salvation, because they're true Christians, while the atheists never were true Christians, never were sincere.
Except that I know I was sincere. Many of us know that we were sincere.
When I related a short version of my story recently, to someone that I was debating online, he asked me if I was a Catholic. That's Protestant-speak for, "Did you try to earn your way to heaven with works?" (or possibly "Did you commit idolatry by praying to Mary or other saints?"). I answered that no, I had not tried to earn my way to heaven with works. (It amazes me that so many Christians I have encountered seem to think that atheists simply forgot to recite a form of the Sinner's Prayer and mean it.)

I am glad that I did not go with my mom that day, because I probably would have been somewhat crabby before breakfast too. "I'll say, 'Thank you very much,' because He will have said, 'Well done!'" I would have been tempted to say, though that might have been a little arrogant, and unintentionally deceitful, since it makes it sound as if I'm a Christian too.
If I was pressed, though, for a nicer, "real" answer, I would say that at least I know that I sought the truth, whatever it was, and (especially when it came to LGBTQ issues, which is how this silly question often comes up for me), at least I know that I loved, and that I tried to make things better for people in the one life that I knew we did have.
But then, my Maker would have already known that--and would know that now.

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