You always do manage, don’t you? Whenever someone starts a sentence with, “I’m not trying to offend anybody” or “I don’t want to offend anyone” or something like that, I know… I just know they’re about to say something that I’m going to want to slap them for. Especially if they’re Christian.
Yesterday morning, I was not having a great day. I woke up on the wrong side of the bed, so to speak, after having a night of weird-ass dreams, and was not in a really great and bouncy mood, and I considered just staying in bed. I should have. But no, being the good, dedicated student that I am, I lurched out of bed, got dressed, and went to class: The History of Christianity. The class was originally supposed to be taught by somebody else, but now it’s being taught by some kind of a reverend or preacher. He’s alright. I tend to not agree with him, but he tries not to say anything stupid, so you know, A for effort and that sort of thing.
The same, however, cannot be said of most of the rest of the students. At the end of last class, he wanted us to think about what Pope Benedick, I mean… Benedict… said about how Canada had turned its back on God by allowing gay marriage and abortion. His point was that people can interpret the scriptures in different ways, and he wanted to know where in the Bible the Pope had gotten this idea. One guy said from parts of Romans and from the Old Testament. But then this girl puts up her hand, and she says, “I don’t want to offend anyone, but…”
And I just knew. I knew I was about to want to slap her, because she was about to say something incredibly stupid, like the following:
“I don’t want to offend anyone, but Jesus wouldn’t have liked homosexuals.”
Jesus never said a damned thing about gay people, but we can assume he would have had a problem… why, exactly? Look, girl, just because you have a problem with people being queer doesn’t mean Jesus did, and it’s not like you can exactly ask him, now is it? Chances are that 2000 years ago, they didn’t really have a concept of what it meant to be “gay”, and even if they did… so what? Give me one, one good reason I should care what a Jewish construction worker who lived and died 2000 years ago, thought about gay people? And don’t tell me he was the Son of God or whatever bullshit it is that you believe, because there’s two possibilities here:
- You’re stupid enough to believe that shit and think that homosexuality is evil and bad because of the Old Testament (in other words, stuff some dead Jewish goatherders wrote even longer than 2000 years ago), or
- You’re using the Bible to justify your own prejudices, because your ideas and ideals are about as antiquated as those of the dead Jewish goatherders.
In either case, I have zero respect for you. Think for your fucking self.
By the way, I totally didn’t mean to offend anyone.
Not.
2 Comments
February 17, 2007 at 9:29 am
Hi there,
I just happened upon your blog, and wanted to write a brief response…
I am a Christian and I agree with a lot of what you said. People DO use the bible to reinforce their own stereotypes, and this is unfortunate. I happen to agree with you that homosexuality is not a sin in God’s eyes, and I don’t interpret the scriptures the same way as the people in your class (or the pope). But that also doesn’t mean that I toss out every aspect of my faith as worthless. I engage my faith with everything that I have (including my intellect) and wrestle with what it really means to say that “Jesus is the Son of God.” I want you to know that being a Christian doesn’t mean that I check my brain at the door.
It sounds like you have been wounded by other Christians, and for that I am truly sorry. Please don’t paint all Christians with the same brush, however. Some of us are open-minded, and strive to be caring human beings.
Peace,
Gregg
March 20, 2007 at 9:30 am
Hey you should go to reallivepreacher.com
He’s this (baptist?) minister who posts a blog and I think that you’d actualy like what he has to say. He wrote two rants (RANTS!) about homosexuality and how wrong his fellow christians are for judging them so harshly. That’s a nice way of putting his first rant actually! I was freaking out when I read it.
And then there’s his second rant in which he addresses every single piece of scripture that may be condemning homosexuality and basically rips it apart and explains WHY it’s not actually condemning homosexuality.
He rocks. SO MUCH.