Dear Lord, protect me from your followers!

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All they wish to accomplish is asserting their own self-righteousness while making others feel bad over something they can't help, all while spewing the same recycled rhetoric that the people they're protesting against have likely heard a million times already.

I know this one is Christian/Catholic specific, but it seems these people forget the main principle of their religion "He takes away the sins of the world". In otherwords, Christ died to forgive all of our sins. Crazy fanatics - you sinned, you're goin' to Hell.

But that sort of implies that their intentionally out to hurt other people. How do you justify that to yourself? How can you go about your life being that kind of person? I can't believe that anyone who does actions like that could be so unaware of what they're doing, but at the same time I just can't fathom anybody truly being capable of that kind of cruelty.

But I guess the evidence speaks for itself. People do incomprehensible things to each other every day. Maybe I'm just too much of an optimist.

To kc8ufv: Yeah, you'd think bible fanatics wouldn't forget key quotes. You know, like that one about "let he without sin cast the first stone." Maybe they just skipped that lesson in Sunday School.

Most of them really don't follow the words of Christ either, more of the Pharisees which Jesus spoke against.

They're concerned for your everlasting soul!

Unfortunately, they might just be correct in that analysis.

They're not doing it because they hate you, I promise. I've been a fundamentalist, and I can honestly say that they are doing it because they care. And, well, Christians who care are taught that the best thing they can possibly do for a gay or transgender person is to warn them that they're going to go to Hell if they don't stop. See, Hell is everything to Christians. They don't want to go there, and they don't want anyone else to go there, either. And it's not like they can just stop believing in it. For a fundamentalist, if you don't believe in Hell, there's not a lot of point to go on being a Christian, because it actually sucks. A lot. Especially for women and children. Without Hell, even the promise of Heaven might not be enough to keep these people loyal. So they have to believe in Hell, and they have to believe that if you're gay you will go to Hell, because if they don't they believe in Hell, and their consciences simply will not allow them to subject anyone else to that torment if there's any chance that they can prevent it. So they go out. Even if it means being criticized, facing accusations of homophobia every day, and generally being looked on as pretty rotten people, they have to try.

I'm not saying it's right. The leaders of U.S. Christianity really need to get their act together on gay support and quit preaching the ol' fire and brimstone. And I detest these demonstrations as much as the next pansexual trans guy; they are a huge portion of the reason why we are still victimized and targeted on a regular basis. But I do want to foster some sympathy for the people who do this, who are often followers and, in their own way, victims (because their agape is being directed into unhealthy and destructive paths by their belief systems). Especially those who are, in fact, TGLB themselves and are forced to hide it because they "know" that they'll be damned if they don't.

(Also, most Christian religions take more after Paul than Jesus. Paul was strictly against teh gheyz.)

Thank you for your insight.

I still have little, if any, sympathy for them because what they're essentially asking me to do is defy my natural urges and either live a life of celibacy or awkward unhappiness while being married to a woman, all to appease a questionable and, frankly, barbaric ancient law code. If only they'd get their noses out of their Bibles and take a glance at our nation's Constitution then they'd know a little more about the proper way to treat their fellow citizens, but that desire is for nought because, based on my experience with these people, the Bible is their entire worldview and they honestly couldn't imagine questioning it.

Furthermore, have they ever thought that they're already putting us through hell by their unending self-righteous judgment of us, and through their attempt to restrict our rights based on their interpretation of the Bible? Shouldn't the fact that we're going to burn in Hell for all eternity be punishment enough for our "sins?" Why do we have to live a life of second-class citizenship and repression while we're alive, too? If that's their idea of "love," then they can take it and shove it because I want no part of it.

Honestly, they think the afterlife is above all and they are giving us "though love". It is real to them and they were trained not to question it. I wish these people realized how much harm they are doing.

I do not force my way of life on them. And I deserve the same treatment based on the Constitution. If it was up to them, we would be living in a fundamentalist dictatorship Based on all the people in office that have blocked the rights of many minorities based on religious teachings, I argue we are more in a dictatorship than we realize.

They aren't, b ut they're working damn hard to make it the truth.

That's an interesting perspective. Thanks for that. You've given me a couple of interesting things to think about.

That's just it, though. The idea is that if you submit to miserable, second-class-citizenship now, you will avoid the hell that is to come, even earn eternal, celibate bliss in Heaven (singing praises to the dude who was going to incinerate you for being gay, of course, but that's one of those things that Christians are brainwashed into ignoring). The general idea is that it's worth it to be miserable for a "few short years" on Earth if it means happiness forever after you die.

I personally think that that perspective is phenomenally messed up. It usually goes hand-in-hand with the notion that Earth is an incorrigibly miserable place to live and that life must suck, which does a huge disservice to the complexity of human life. There are so many things we can experience that are beautiful and joyful; so many others that aren't but are worth experiencing anyway. Christians claim that they are devoted to a "higher purpose," yet there's no real higher purpose to them other than endless happiness. It's very shallow and self-contradictory.

By that logic, shouldn't they stop their incessant whining over being "persecuted?" What's spending about seventy to eighty years in a godless society when you'll be rewarded with eternal salvation in Heaven?

Also, any god that would send people to Hell for loving the wrong person is a god that I find to be repugnant and morally bankrupt.

Well, you know, just because they have to be miserable doesn't mean that they want to be. Also, most of the "persecution" they whine about is when they believe they're not being allowed to practice their religion freely. Such as being forced to do something (take their children to a doctor, for example) that contradicts what they believe is a holy commandment.

Also, like most human beings, Christians have a habit of prioritizing their own needs over everyone else's.

And I agree with you on that last bit. Because really, no matter how many mental gymnastics you go through it all comes back to that "punishing people for being who they are" thing.

When you refuse your child any health care, then that's child abuse, pure and simple.

Oh my gosh. YES.

This was the most liberating thing about leaving Christianity. I realized, suddenly, that my life didn't have to be constant suffering and pain, while hoping that I was tortured to death as a martyr, only to be rewarded by a sterile feel-good suburbia in the afterlife.

I could be happy. Here. Now.

That was WONDERFUL.

And while I have nothing but sympathy for the people so afraid that they need to criticize who I fall in love with, I would like to politely invite them to take their problems, see a shrink, and then kiss my overly-large white-chick gluteous maximus.