Editor:
I’m a 19-year-old actor from Carnegie Mellon and I just read your piece People Suck. I’m a Unitarian Universalist and was raised by two women in a Gay and Lesbian Bed and Breakfast on the Potomac River. I loved your piece a lot! Thanks for representin’ Candace! Especially in a place most of us generally deem enemy territory. Keep it up!
Sammy
Editor:
Bravo! Thank you for doing a good work and taking on the true faith task not a sidebar. We are not here to determine who is in and who is out but to love one another. I am not gay but a friend. I am married with two kids that I hope will grow up loving all people and serving God through an active life watching out for the poor and downtrodden. Do not surrender but keep working and loving! I have had too many gay friends suffer already and enough is enough.
God speed to you! Jon
Editor:
I’m sure you receive more than your fair share of hatred and anger for standing up for what you believe is right. I wanted to simply give you my thanks for offering a clear and interesting way of viewing homosexuality and the Bible. I too am a graduate of Candler (currently serving in North Alabama … probably about as open minded as SC), and I have struggled to find a way to defend my deepest beliefs in the face of isogetes and proof-texters (who are rampant in my church, as is the Good News movement). Every once in a while I get rewarded by having the chance to read something like you have here in Whosoever. It reaffirms my beliefs, calls me to social justice, and makes me believe that there is more out there than just bigotry and hatred. I plan to share this website with my wife (also a minister in NA), and I wish you only the best in your ministry.
God Bless, John
Editor:
I am very grateful to you for publishing [Dr. Robin Meyer’s speech]. We evangelicals who know that ‘moral issues’ are in the plural and not limited to same sex preference need to speak out. Jesus said nary a word on that subject but had much to say about how we are to take care of the poor.
I myself am impoverished and it is astonishing how many of my fellow Christians rate my worth based on my pocketbook and not on the quality of my life.
Thank you, Gloriamarie
Editor:
I am male, straight, liberal, happily married 22 years, two sons, etc. These are tough times for you and me. The temptation toward simplification is too strong for most Christians. Surveys taken before the 2004 election showed the most tolerance for “gay marriage” among people who actually knew gays, and none among those who didn’t. The obvious conclusion is that to know is to understand; knowing a gay person resolves the question of elective lifestyle choice. The process of self-acceptance would be easier for people like yourselves if religious people had some Biblical way out of their intolerance. But the standard evangelical system of Biblical interpretation depends on not understanding.
You have a long climb ahead of you. I support that climb, but I think it has to be a simple issue of human rights instead of an effort to re-educate all of modern Christendom. It has taken decades for modern Christianity to build a Biblical interpretation which seems to hang together in the face of sometimes terribly confusing chapter and verse – in fact, a whole culture had to be invented. To be tolerant, you must study; if you use the critical/historical method of understanding Scripture, you realize how much the conventional view is a modern invention. Purity of doctrine is hard enough to maintain without having to rethink one’s understanding of the “wholeness” of Scripture. For me, as one who left charismatic evangelical Christianity after tiring of jumping through hoops, tiring of stretching my faith thinly around my growing doubts, I now hold a broader, simpler view: the universe is full of incredible diversity, making it more than obvious that God loves it (diversity). If God creates humans, some of whom He makes gay, what right have I to reject them?
In my house, you are married. In my view, “marriage” is what you and your partner have. How silly to reject “gay marriage,” which I believe would support gays in their efforts to have monogamous relationships, when what really threatens conventional marriage today is that old problem of adultery leading to divorce. The shouting about “gay marriage” is so much louder than any attempts to curtail “no-fault” divorce, the inability to see their own hypocrisy is amazing. And the idea that gays are not worthy to raise children – ! Don’t get me started. At any rate, I hope your struggles will result someday in joy – for others at least. In the meantime, I trust your marriage is solid and thrives whether you see your hopes come true, or not.
B
Editor:
Thank you for your article [A New Diet for a New Year]. I really enjoyed it a lot. It’s something I have struggled with for most of my life, letting the negative thoughts rule my life and my outlook on people. But thanks be to God, I have been slowly winning the battle little by little and am praying I will be able to pass that on to my son also…so that he may be positive about himself and be forgiving of other people’s flaws. Thank you for writing that article…it’s very timely for the New Year. Keep up the wonderful work! -Lisa Editor: I just went to Google and typed in “Gay Hope” and I found you’re article Esqueertology: Gay Christians’ Right to Hope!
I’m thrilled to read this stuff because I’m a Christian and have slid into a downward slope of hopelessness. I’m taking a bunch of meds for depression and think of suicide constantly. Your section on “tough mindedness” struck a chord with me. I have loved God all my life, have tried to live by the gospel the way you’re seeing it, and prayed for some kind of peace in my heart and mind and relief from endless health issues. I at 56 and HIV+, I continue to teach special education full time and do a great job but I go home everyday dealing with physical pain, loneliness and guilt about my sexual hunger. I don’t want to live the rest of my life like this. Your words kicked everything up a notch and I’ll reread and process. I’m getting up from my computer with some different synapses.
Thanks so much, Steve