Does God Love Homosexuals?

The other night I went to a business opportunity conference to check out this private franchising thing I'm getting into. It was wonderful, I was very excited and the speaker was a gifted and charismatic speaker ... and also very religious. Now, I don't mind that. I have my own faith and he was able to use the Bible to illustrate his points very effectively. In addition to making gobs of money, this is a company that thrives on helping people as well, which I think is very cool. But near the end it started to be a bit heavy 4 me, mainly because it reminded me too much of when I actually went to church ... and ultimately why I left.

My family's church is pentecostal. When I was very young, I was at church all the time ... until we moved to TX ... but those teachings moved with me. The pentecostal church ... just like most religions ... have always preached and really believed that to be a homosexual was to be an abomination ... to be gay was to be damned ... we occupied like the ninth ring of Hell or something crazy like that. Now, I spent most of my teenage years being afraid, hating myself and tyring to change into something I was not. I was a not a very happy person. I was not very outgoing, I didn't have a lot of friends, if any, and sex? Forget about it. I didn't even kiss another man until I was 21. So, it took a very long time for me to come out of that religious dogma and accept myself for who I was. Once I did do that, however, my whole life changed.

So, I no longer fear Hell or what anybody thinks of me ... and here is why. 4 me, being gay is like being black. It's part of my DNA. I can no more change my sexual orientation than I can change my skin color. Ok, so maybe Michael Jackson can change his skin color, but nobody else! I know that other people's experience may be different than my own. The truth is I was gay before I even knew what "gay" was. I can remember all the way back to Kindergarten having a crush on my best friend "Tyrone". Nothing traumatic happened to me in my childhood, I liked boys all through grade school and in 7th grade, I found out what the word "gay" meant ... and I began to understand why I always felt so different than everyone. That's when all the self hate started ... between that and church. One of the many many things I don't understand is how a church of love can breed such hate? That's another subject entirely though.

So, I'm sitting in this conference Thursday night, and it starts stirring up all these old feelings and these fears that I thought I had long left behind. The fact is I still believe in God. I still believe in Jesus Christ. But that's where it ends. I don't know what else I believe anymore. I can't imagine that I would be damned just by being born ... and in essence that's what I believe it boils down to. I was born gay ... so why would God hate me when he created me? To ask that question in my church was basically to blaspheme. I mean I've heard it all ... from the obvioius "it's a choice u make" to "boy, u have demons on you!"

So, I'm trying to somehow reconcile my spirituality with my sexuality and I really don't know where to begin. I mean, it would really really suck if I am damned cuz eternal fire doesn't exactly sound like a Sunday afternoon on the beach. So, please, if you have any thoughts, chime on in. Let me know what you think. I love a good dialogue!

"All of the sadness over, I'm finally free..."