What is religion to gays and lesbians?

Question

If you're a gay christian, what do you believe. I've read the bible and it says, not word for word,"that a man should not sleep with a man the way a woman would, that is abdomination." How can I defend myself against that. People say its wrong, people say that it isn't wrong. From my experiences I know that it isn't a choice or anything you can change. I dont care if the world doesn't accept me, but how do I know that I'm accepted by God? Its like you never really know who goes to heaven or hell, how do we know whether or not being gay is right or wrong? What do most gays or lesbians believe? Do they disbelief in Jesus to the side? Any opinion, that is positive, can help.

Answer 1

> I've read the bible and it says, not word for word,"that a man should not sleep with a man the way a woman would, that is abdomination." How can I defend myself against that.

It also says (Leviticus 11:10) that eating shellfish is an abomination, but we ignore that one along with countless other prohibitions and admonitions. Check out The Skeptics Annotated Bible, http://skepticsannotatedbible.com/

> I dont care if the world doesn't accept me, but how do I know that I'm accepted by God?

God created you the way you are. You cannot change what you like sexually any more than you can change whether you prefer chocolate or vanilla ice cream, white meat or dark. Do you think God wants you to marry some poor woman and make both of you miserable? That's not my vision of God. God wants you to be happy.

The Biblical prohibition of homosexuality stems from a day when the survival of mankind as a species was in doubt and reproductive facility was precious and couldn't be wasted

Answer 2

The Bible was written by MEN, dear, not by GOD. I'm Catholic and 'straight' but I counseled many gays and lesbians over the years, and MOST of them had the same 'problem' you have ... they think because of what the Bible says that God 'can't' love them. GOD LOVES EVERYONE, and if your condition is something you were 'born with' then GOD STILL LOVES YOU. If you want to go out and WORSHIP GOD in a church, then you may have some problems ... but where I live there are churches that 'advertise' with rainbows on their signs so that gays and lesbians know they'll be 'accepted as they are' and my church (which happens to be the CATHEDRAL) has openly gay people working in it. Be who you are, and DON'T WORRY about your 'sexuality' when it comes to 'getting into heaven' ... it's who you are as a person and what you do in the world that 'counts' not your 'sexuality' or who you go to bed with ... if you LOVE them, then you're OKAY. And I am SORRY you had to 'ask this' question in an online forum, but am GLAD you did, because EVERYONE needs to know that God IS Love and put their 'personal prejudices' behind them. The world would be a lot BETTER place if we all could do that.

Answer 3

We may not have any solid proof whether or not we are accepted by God, but I believe that I am loved and accepted by God. He created me this way, I don't care what the Bible says. You just have to have faith and believe that God loves us for who we are. No book can tell us what God thinks of us. Like you said, being gay isn't a choice, so why is it such a stretch to believe that God created us this way? I believe in Jesus and I am sure that he feels the same way as God.

Answer 4

i am a bisexual who also has transgender feelings..

i believe that a God does exist, and like most religions, i believe that God's motives are never totally clear and we should not try to question them. i also believe that there is no way to technically prove that God does or does not exist. but i do feel i can feel his presense..

as far as Jesus, i don't doubt that the man exists. I do have a hard time believing everything i have read about him. I certainly don't believe he "is God"

I believe the concept of God and spirituality are very personal. i don't see the need to conform to anyone one particular religion's book or "bible" no book written by humans will ever tell me what to do. i reject the bible, and most of all, as a transgenderred person, i reject how society tries to tell me how to live my life..

I will never put a label on my head that says christian, jew, muslim, or anything else.. i am me, and the only label i will ever have is one that says "i am me!"

furthermore, God, and only God, will ever tell me what do to, and God, and only God, will ever be the one who can truly judge me.

too many people are more worried about judging or converting others to conform, when what they really need to do is focus on how they can look themselves in the mirror and become a better person and how they can improve the world they live in.

that's how i feel, and i think if more people adopted this philosophy, then the world would be a better place.

Answer 5

I have many Christian friends, gay and straight. Some of them are the lead ministers in their churches. We work together on social causes and to promote understanding between different denominations.
Mainstream churches such as the Episcopal, Methodist, Disciples of Christ and the Unitarian Universalists make a deliberate effort to reach out and welcome Gays and Lesbians.
Different version of the "Bible" have been translated and interpreted in different ways. It may say disobedient children should be put to death or a widow must marry her brother in law. Or that no one should eat pork or shell fish or ever get a divorce. These rules were written at different times under different circumstances. Most churches selectively follow them.
If you live a good, honorable and productive life, no one has a right to criticize you for being gay. Find a church home where you will be nurtured and up lifted. Good luck to you.

Answer 6

Hey,

I presume that you want honest opinions, informed by as much education as people have. Therefore that is exactly what I am going to give you.

Belief in Christ has existed since approximately 30 AD -- the canon of books that we now call the Bible did not come into existence until the three hundreds, and was not canonized until the Council of Carthage. The two things do not relate to one another, no matter how many people strut and insist that they do.

Let me repeat that in different words -- Christianity preexists the Bible by several hundred years. Those who claim that there were autographs of the Bible that existed from the time of Christ are, quite frankly and quite factually lying. They aren't stretching the truth -- there is no truth in their assertions.

Eucharist we can say with some certainty was around by 65 AD, as we have found copies of the Eucharistic prayers from approximately 65 AD. The Bible, composed of letters and stories written by various people, was not pulled together then. It was not pulled together for hundreds of years after then. In fact, it was after the gnostic/anti-gnostic struggle was settled by the Council of Nice (Nicea) at the command of the Emperor Constantine, taht canon became an issue. The books were selected to support the doctrines of Nice, not the other way around. Different canons by the dozen were in use at the time -- and many, if not most, churches (congregations) still used NO BOOKS, unless it was, perhaps, for some, the Jewish Torah (and possibly haf-torahs, though from what I've read I think not) -- many Gentile Christian groups almost certainly did not use the Torah.

So we know historically that the Church was around for a long time before the canon of books (the Bible) -- how do we know that God wasn't just kind of slow -- and the Bible is in fact His revealed word? It speaks for itself.

While we have none of the autographs of the Bible, the early manuscripts we do have have and that are known to be genuine, by the most conservative estimates, have 200,000 differences between the wording in them, and while many are not meaningful, some completely change the doctrine of the church. (Ehrman, Bart, Ph.D.; Misquoting Jesus: The story behind who changed the Bible and Why; Harper Collins, 2006 -- p. 89). less conservative estimates range up to about 400,000 -- and there are programmers now endeavoring to write a program that will be able to count the exact number of variances.

And that's only the start of the difficulties for the Bible. If you only use the Textus Receptus (Received Text) as it is printed in modern Bibles then you are looking at enormous problems anyway -- in fact insurmountable ones. The World does not have corners (Isaiah 11:12), nor does it sit on pillars (I Samuel 2:8), nor water (Psalms 24:1-2). God did not establish a solid dome over the earth (that's what firmament literally means) and he does not have a palace on top of it from which angels can come and go up Jacob's ladder -- which might be reached by the tower of babel -- and where he keeps "treasuries" of hail and snow (Job 38: 22-23). For the sake of all that is decent, you can't even harmonize the 1st and 2nd chapters of Genesis with each other, say nothing of being able to defend the Biblical creation as scientifically factual. That's no surprise though, as the Bible tells us that beetles have four legs (Leviticus 11: 21-23) and that rabbits chew their cuds (Deuteronomy 14:7). It says that pi is 3, not 3.14 (I Kings 7:23 and 2 Chronicles 4:2) and that the mustard seed is the smallest seed in the world and grows into a tree [neither of which are true] (Matthew 13: 31-32). It is hardly a font of rational thought or scientific accuracy. Furthermore these errors only scratch the surface. Try harmonizing accounts in Joshua and the telling of the same tales in timeline in Judges sometime. If you can you are more proficient than any theologian I've ever met, and I've met a few.

Late bronze age men created the OT and early iron age ones the NT. It is not surprising therefore that God cannot lead Israel to defeat Iron chariots after promising he would (Judges 1:19), and it is not surprising that the flight of Israel from the god Chemosh, after the king of a city the Jews were beseiging and that God had promised them they would overthrow The King of the city offered his own son to Chemosh as a human sacrifice, resulting in Chemosh driving the Israelites away (2 Kings 3: 19-27) -- further it is not surprising that no punishment is mentioned -- the Israelites were still sacrificing their own children, as is evidenced in several places, but most graphically in Judges 11:30-39

The long and short of it is, the Bible is a mythic book, written by bronze and iron age men who were recording primarily oral legends in written form. In any realistic sense it is drivel. You can see, just in the passages I noted above from 2 Kings -- the last vestiges of polytheism fading away. Chemosh was supposed to get power from human sacrifice, just as Jehovah did -- and that power allowed him to turn the table against Israel, despite the fact that God was with Israel.

And if you want a chuckle, read the second, and theoretically final version of the ten commandments. They are in Exodus 34: 10-26. That is the covenant Yahweh actually made with Israel. No seething here!

In any event, Christianity is about Christ, a fair number of churches know that. It is not, and was not historically, about biblio-idolatry, as much as some people today might want it to be, and might mislead people into thinking it is. Christ was obviously a being of intense love. I believe that God is love, and that judgement, for all it comforts those who live to see others suffer because they don't "do what they should," is not of Him, or anything to do with him. Certainly the Bible isn't and what it says about homosexuals is as meaningless as what it says about the earth having corners and the whole thing being visible from the top of a really high mountain.

He loves you for who you are -- can you love Him the same?

If you need further assistance with this, do not hesitate to email me.

Kind thoughts,

Reynolds Jones
Schenectady, NY
http://www.rebuff.org
[e-mail]

Answer 7

I am not a Christian, but I respect the faith. Religion can be useful in helping people to figure out what is right and what is wrong, but spirituality is WAY more important than religion.

Many religions have contradictions. Christianity, for example, has that 'prohibition' for men but not for women. Also, blended fabrics (cotton/wool) are also prohibited; this is generally ignored by the community. Why? because these were ritual prohibitions that no longer apply to the health and safety of the community.

God/Goddess/ Name of your choice (I prefer 'The Divine') built homosexuality into the natural structure of the world. I cannot imagine that the Divine would do this if it was a mortal sin as many would try to see it. Many of the keys given to us are in nature itself.

The Divine made you as you are intended to be. IMO, it is a wrong and sinful thing to pretend to be other than what the Divine intended for you. Your capacity to love was given as a gift to you.

Ultimately, only you can decide, in this life, what is right for you. Pray on it.

Answer 8

It also talks about a man getting in trouble for not impregnating his sister-in law after his brother dies and leaves her a widow. The bible was written by men so long ago that's it's bound to have a typo or two that have been passed down.

That's the justification. My advice is leave the religion that is based entirely on apothecary texts of unknown origin that probably have little to no actual legitimacy.

Answer 9

I am a gay christian, and i belive the way any other christian belives. that Jesus died on the cross for me so that all my sins be forgiven. I also know from stories in the bible that I serve a mercyful, but just God. I tithe to the church and i pray every night. God has blessed me throughout my life and i trust him to do the same until i take my last breath. I belive that when you truely get saved that God will judge you at the end of time as his child and will have mercy on my soul.

Answer 10

Religion is not a big issue to me. God created all of us for a reason. That higher spirit is the only thing can judge us. So don't knock yourself out over the correct answer, everyone has an opinion. Its what you believe.