Religious and LGBT

I'm not devout, but I am Christian. I believe that God made us who we are and loves us all. There are many branches of Christianity that love and support LGBT+ people. I have a rainbow wrist band that I got at last year's Pride Festival from the Episcopal Church that says "God Loves You. No Exceptions." I also belong to a trans+ support group that meets in a rented room at a Presbyterian Church.

 

Roman Catholic bisexual checking in.

 

My beliefs are that God's law is laid out in the Ten Commandments. There's nothing in there that says that being gay is wrong. There is however a commandment that says "Thou shall not covet thy neighbors manservant nor his maidservant...". 'Manservant'/'maidservant' sounds a lot like 'slaves'. So does that mean that God is saying slavery is okay? Plus, many devout Christians break the Ten Commandments frequently. Keeping the sabbath day holy, using the Lord's name in vain, committing adultery, even coveting thy neighbor's wife is banned in the Ten Commandments, and people do that a lot. So why should mutual love between two human beings be considered so wrong?

 

(Non-celibate) gay Anglican here.

Tell me, which passages from the Bible are particularly concerning? I'm guessing it's a small number because the Bible actually has very little to say about people of the same sex being attracted to, or intimate with each other. There are over sixty books in the Bible and we can actually count on our fingers the number of passages that come anywhere near to referring to homosexuality. Even then, they are usually quoted well out of context and weaponised against the LGBT+ community.

If you can say which passages are concerning I should be able to point you to some good resources that offer perspective.

 

Bisexual Christian in a mixed marriage, yep she knows

Please, Please, Please, do not ever subject yourself to any form of conversion theory. It just #ucks with your mind and twists your soul and takes a very long time to unlearn what was taught to you. This I know from experience.

 

Lesbian who grew up southern baptist here. For one thing, I read “God and the Gay Christian” by Matthew Vines. He walks through the “clobber passages” in the Bible that are used against queer people. Turns out, when you look at the original text in the original languages in context, they’re not so clear. There are also Matthew Vines videos on YouTube on the topic. But, fun fact. The word “homosexual” didn’t appear in the Bible in English translations until the 1940’s (nor was there a synonym for it there. They took the word “effeminate” and made it “homosexual” which is a pretty big leap and perhaps doesn’t speak well of the people who did it). That and the ancient world didn’t think about homosexuality the same way we do today.

For another thing, in the current political environment in the US, I took a step back and looked, really looked, at the group of people who had so thoroughly convinced me something was wrong with me and asked some hard questions about how much (in a Donald Trump world) I trusted their judgment and what they were showing me their values really, truly were. What were their intentions really? The same people who told me I was an abomination for being gay also think Trump is a Godly man and is doing a fine job. So, how much of what they had taught me of a child did they really actually believe and stand by? Turns out, not much. So why listen to what they had to say (without question) about homosexuality?

 

A very good point. There are people in the United States who call themselves Christians and really believe Donald Trump is God's gift to the nation.

Whatever your politics, you cannot seriously claim to be a follower of Christ and at the same time regard a thoroughly amoral and mendacious man as some sort of blessing from God. If this is your position, you are morally bankrupt and lose the right to piously judge anyone about anything.

 

It’s not just some people. Polls show the vast, vast majority of white evangelicals in the US have approved of Trump all this time. And I can pretty much guarantee you the venn diagram between the evangelicals who love Trump and The evangelicals who hate lgbt people has massive overlap.

 

You can’t change your sexuality by any means. What you can do is wreck your mental health. Read up on the suicide rates of people who attempt conversion therapy. @Chip can speak to it better than I can (since I’m just a lay person). But there’s zero proof that sexuality can be forcibly changed by any means. And in some cases, major conversion therapy organizations have come back and apologized for the damage they’ve done to people.

Seriously though. Read “God and the Gay Christian”. You don’t have to choose between your faith and being who you are. That’s a false choice.

 

I grew up Baptist. They’re not going to accept you (or at least most wont). But there are other denominations who will. A lot of Methodist churches (which aren’t *that* different from Baptist, Episcopalian, some Presbyterian. There are websites that list gay affirming churches in your area. You should also check out the Reformation Project. There are Christians actively working on educating churches on lgbt issues. Change is slowly happening, but Baptists will likely be the slowest to do so.

 

Yes. He’s an admin here who has talked about it quite a lot. The gist being that every reputable professional organization for psychology in the world has said that conversation therapy is damaging, dangerous, and ineffective.