homosexuality

I am a man who happens to be gay. Nice to meet you too. I am not going to bore you with details about my life. But I will talk about my life in turn of homosexuality.

1) Ignorance.
I guess in the beginning, it was pure ignorance of sexuality in general. I learned about sex at a late age (9 I believe) and I was firmly disgusted with it back then. Back then I thought that lying together naked was strange and I was horrified at the fact that innocent babies were conceived in such a grostesque manner. But since then I only saw sex as a male-female thing, I was not bothered by my feelings that I began to have about other men.

2) Realization and Horror
When I found out what "gay" meant, I assumed it was just a word for really feminine men. I bought into the stereotypes, saw gays as a bunch of men who wanted to be women, their sensitivity, their apparent dress style seemed not to be me. I wasn't gay, I didn't want to be a woman.
But when I realized that gay meant that I was attracted to men, and not women, I shuddered and was truly horrified. Really why would I, a healthy pre-teen be attracted to a person of the same sex? But then I begin having crushes, and although I did truly have a few crushes on girls, I began having crushes on men such as teachers, and even some of my friends in high school.

3) Turn to Christianity for advice
I decided to see what God had to say. Unfortunately I turned to fundamentalism and their approach to homosexuality. The fundamentalists pounded on my head that homosexuals were burning in hell as we speak. Their hate-filled rhetoric started reasonating with my beliefs. I even took their cause and went on the Internet spouting the most hateful, the most homophobic statements I made. My biggest regret was making fun of the Shepard murder and downplaying the homophobia rampant in our society.

4) See my homophobia as self-hatred
Eventually I learned that my homophobia was hatred towards me. I hated the fact that at my school, it was normal to dream about members of the opposite sex, and how I didn't quite believe I was normal. I hated the fact that while I am politically quite conservative, that in the eyes of some conservatives, I was not welcome.

5) Accept myself
2 words, accept myself. Before this, I would either pray to God that he would change me, and when this didn't happen, I attributed this to my sin. Or I usually would "try" to be attracted to women. Unfortunately my attractions towards men were stronger than my attractions towards women.

6) Re-discover my Lord Jesus Christ
Before, I saw Jesus as Judge and King. I still see these attributes in my Lord, but now I saw other attributes that fundamentalists downplay. I saw his radical acceptance, his love and his mercy. Then I realized that Jesus is God. God accepts me! He made me this way, he would not condemn me but invite me into the house of God.

e same God that I worshiped and live a different lifestyle than I did. I now try to be more accepting, and look beyond my prejudices and my biases. I, but now I am willing to listen.

I thank you for acceptance
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