Tuesday, April 10, 2012

PERSECUTING CHRISTIANS?

THIS WAS POSTED TO A PERSON AND I DECIDED TO USE IT AS A BLOG POST


I do not waste my time trying to get you to change your opinion. Your elites are yours and you have a right to them. What I and others strongly object to is people of religious faith trying to pass their ideas into law. In your country this has happened recently and your political life is all tied up with religion. It is especially hateful toward gays. It is difficult for me to feel well toward a person who believes I am sinful because of my very nature. I am not a choice, not a behaviour, not an aberration, not less than you. You believe otherwise and I find that hurtful but I can live with it as long as you keep out if my life. Unfortunately, far too many people who believe as you do are trying to take my liberty away and are steadfastly trying to stop the return of my human rights which are the same as yours but people who share your religion(and other religions) are determined to treat us like sub humans and would have us dead if they could. Now you say you don't judge others but your words belie you. You say you believe the what the bible says about sin. Therefore you believe I am an abomination and deserve to be killed. You can say you don't follow that but in actuality you do because you give succour to those who would have me dead. This is what Anne Rice means. It's like saying I am in the KKK but I wouldn't go against a black person.

I have found that people who profess the way you do, in the end, are just as culpable. I would love to think you are different. In 53 years of keeping my heart open and my hope going I have been always been disappointed.

The beliefs you support ruined my life. I was born to parents who believe as you. From a toddler onwards it was clear to me that I was not acceptable. It took years for me to realise that this was because I was not the boy they wanted. I was a sissy boy, not a butch boy. Thus resulted in being unloved and physically punished to the extent that I live with brain damage and 24/7 physical pain because of the damage done to be body in the attempt to make me other than the way I was born. I have never been able to earn my own living. I do not have a family. All because of what you believe. That I am not acceptable. Your refusal to see that I am not a choice or a behaviour is what results in the life I had. However, I had my own epiphany and I am a happy and grateful man. I k ow what love is. I am loved by my husband of 31years. He taught me not just how to love, because I knew how not to hurt, but how to accept love because I detested myself. I had no mirror for many years I hated myself so much. I cut myself. I didn't go out. Then after much pain and searching, alone in my bedroom and I screamed out if you fucking love then you show it NOW! Because I was so afraid and hurt so much I could not bear it any longer and I knew in that moment that God had to reveal himself or I would be finished. Guess what? He answered. I fell to my knees and wretched and wretched and the phone rang and it was the woman who has been there for me since '79, she didn't ak what was wrong with me, she just started to speak to me like was a little boy. I erupted and finally all that grief and pain came gushing out. It hurt. It hrt in a way I cannot describe. I wailed like an animal and she just soothed me and kept telling me over and over how I was not to blame, I was not the problem. I have changed since then. I do not self harm. I no longer dress in dowdy hiding clothing. I don't have night terrors, I don't have panic attacks, the PTSD is very mild now. I am over 100lb lighter. Today I know I am acceptable just as I am, that I am not a sin, a mistake, an abbé ration, or any other thing you might say. I am the way God made me and my love for my husband is not an abomination, not sinful, not shameful, not evil. No, far from those things, it is holy. As all such love between people is.

I had not intended to write so much. I will send though. I am not doing so to change your mind, I know that is pointless. I do so in order that you might glean a better idea of why people have antipathy toward you and others who think the way you do. Stay out if my life, and I will stay out of yours. I mean in a political sense. You must though realise that yes, you have responsibility for not just how I was so abused but for every gay person who is so abused by religionists (like the American Xians who helped draft the Ugandan death penalty law for gays) because although you may recoil in horror and offense at my words, you DO enable and embolden these people because you support their belief.
Perhaps I have at least explain to you in a way you might understand that since your beliefs are responsible for so much agony in other people, it is understandable that said people are not exactly enamoured by you. It is a cop out to say you don't agree with the way I was treated growing up and the way some still treat me when at the same you say you believe I am an abomination and deserved of death.

positive regard
Colin
(why positive regard? You are human and I view all humans that way. I can hate your belief because of the suffering it causes. Doesn't mean I hate you. Your belief can alter. It isn't who you are, it's your choice. Who you are is a human being who I assume wants what most want...peace. Why would I wish anything else upon you? If you found peace, you'd believe differently.)

3 comments:

WereGrouch said...

As usual, your words are beautiful and powerful. I hope they will help to change someone's heart, open their eyes and mind.

Iris said...

As time goes by, it astounds me to find out how many people believe as you and I believe. People I would never have suspected of harboring such a similar opinion and experience are, sadly, silent. It is so refreshing to find one who is willing to say what is so without cringing or running for the nearest foxhole. You are a brave soul, Colin.

shy-chey said...

Knitman... thank you... I most definitely can sympathize with you... I have for years fought with the intolerance of others... living in the middle of the Bible belt...has its problems, bglt intolerance, religion diversity intolerance, weight acceptance intolerance, alternate lifestyle intolerance, and male and female roles in my society... in school I had to deal with the views of others and at home I had to deal with how the parents decided to act... two years ago I renounced my religion, although I wasn't able to tell my parents that... and also came to notice certain feelings that I had for those of the same sex, as well as those of the opposite sex... I have had to keep my personal beliefs to my self as well as dealing with my parents making me so dependent that I am afraid that they will leave me alone... I have had to deal with all of this, and was lucky enough to find some people who have started to help me understand that I can make it... but there are always ups and downs...
Anyways... thank you for writing this, I cried through the entire thing because of how beautiful it was... again... thank you...