In the past few weeks, a potential to make history or setback the LGBT community has been a hot button pressed too many times to count. Naturally, I am referring to the United State's Supreme Court's decision to hear the Defense of Marriage Act and Proposition 8 cases. The outcome of these cases will not only have an impact on modern day society; they will have an impact on my future, as well. As a student, attending any college or university can be quite the obstacle; however, as a gay student attending a nationally ranked university in the heart of the South's Bible Belt, life can be anything but easy. Simply put, life as a gay man in the South is a daily struggle.
My upbringing was the picture-perfect example of any good ole southern boy. I was taught to hunt, fish and spit and have an unhealthy obsession with football (I am a quick-study but I did not develop an affinity for these southern, staple ways of life). Among these teachings, I was also influenced to view homosexuality as a perversion, a sickness and a sin. This type of behavior was not acceptable. "It is not right," I would hear everyone say. When I would ask why, I was met with the response that I hear time and time again today, "Because the Bible says so."
When DOMA and Prop. 8 coverage stormed the nation; a cyber war of beliefs, judgment, opinions and slander ensued. I would scroll through my social media feeds realizing that my friends and followers had claimed a side. I read debate after debate, defending whether or not marriage equality should be legalized or outlawed. Unfortunately, I read more "because the Bible says so" defenses than I cared to. This reasoning disheartens me. It seems many southern Christians use the Bible to defend their stance or distaste of homosexuality, yet they cannot seem to recite or tell me exactly where in the Bible that God condemns homosexuality. No one can seem to tell me why I shall suffer a fate of eternal damnation for loving whom I choose to love, regardless of gender. I have often felt that some Christians hide behind the Bible to defend their own judgments, only to discredit the true theological meaning of God's word.
So I decided to do a bit of research. Now before I continue, I will say that I do not claim to be a biblical historian these are just the observations I made and after taking a deep look at several passages throughout the Bible what I found did give me the much-needed hope to restore my faith in Christianity. The terms homosexual or homosexuality are recent, modern terms added to the Revised Standard Version of the New Testament in 1946. From my understanding, the terms were coined or made relevant by Austrian-Hungarian writer and "gay rights" advocate K.M. Kertbeny in 1869 to healthily define the love for one's own sex.
I then turned to the story of Sodom and Gomorrah. I always understood the destruction of this illustrious city to have been the result of "sinful homosexuality" until I read the passages for myself. According to scriptures Genesis 19, Jeremiah 23: 13-14 and even Ezekiel 16: 48-50, Sodom and Gomorrah citizens were destroyed due to being arrogant, overfed and unconcerned, an unwillingness to help the poor and needy, adultery and sexual immorality and the raping of travelers who ventured into the city. Sodom is mentioned 48 times in the Bible and never once is the word homosexual implied.
I am not an expert, in the least; yet, the more I read the more I tend to believe that our society could easily be considered a modern-day Sodom and Gomorrah. As a society, we are selfish and obsessed with fulfilling the American Dream by having a career that brings us the wealth to have a fancy house, car, and clothes.
Let me clarify, to anyone who does not understand or has a fear of the homosexual community, being gay is not a choice. It is not something as simple as deciding what to wear, what to eat or whatever you choose to fill the hours in your schedule. You can suppress your true nature, but you cannot "pray the gay away." I have tried. I was not successful. After all, why would anyone choose to walk through life faced with ridicule, the possibility of being ostracized from one's family for being different or denied the opportunity to share their love for another person in a ceremony that is currently only allowed for heterosexual couples. Do heterosexual men and women choose to be straight? No, they do not.
I am just a human being like everyone else. I love whom I love and no one should be judged for that. The bullying, the hateful campaigning and dictating how my life and all my fellow brothers and sisters' lives should be lived is not conducive to building a better society or even a closer relationship with God for that matter. Judgment is a sin. And on Judgment Day, I will stand before God and answer for my sins, as will everyone else who has judged anyone for any given thing. "Judge not, and ye shall not be judged: condemn not, and ye shall not be condemned: forgive, and ye shall be forgiven." Luke 6:37.
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