The kids I went to high school with who taunted or degraded gays were not typically ones who cared much about religions, or who had strongly held religious beliefs.
Yeah, and I'm not going to question your experiences, we can have some specific situations which shape us, that are just
different.
But I often wonder why so many Christians are basically "silent" when it comes to defending homosexual people against unnecessarily cruel or abjectly unjust actions. I've silently endured many a session where people I knew were Christians, basically ignored the evil many homosexuals were subjected to (for no good reason whatsoever).
You see, I think a massive number of Christian people are guilty of the sin of omission (not speaking up to defend the PERSON being unjustly assailed), when it comes to the overall treatment many homosexual people receive.
And it's common to see people who are otherwise very "sweet-spirited" (Christians), sound like absolute ruthless monsters as soon as they have to deal with addressing homosexuals and homosexuality. Seriously, it is one of the primary reasons I eventually left the church I was going to.
I can understand what many mean by "repentance", and most of the time I don't think they are crazy or unreasonable to see things that way; many Christians cannot condone "homosexuality"; I get that, and it goes to the deepest levels of understanding in my heart. But so many times it would literally BREAK my heart, to hear people who thought they did love me, prove that they really couldn't love me. It just seemed that they'd been taught to hate homosexual people, as much as what they viewed to be a sin. What I sensed mostly was repulsion or rejection.
At a certain point, I knew that I couldn't change anything about what specific Christians tended to think about homosexuality and/or homosexual people. So often, I wanted to take the cliche', "Love the sinner, hate the sin.", and cram it down the throat of the person who would so confidently say it; especially since they already proved to me that they really couldn't love someone who just happened to be homosexual.
And that is where (for me) the distrust of what many interpret from the Bible about homosexuality and homosexuals originates. And certainly, I would have traded one sexual-orientation for the other, just to escape the rejection and tentative-compassion related to being a homosexual person. It's hard to say just what "Christian" love is (as it pertains to homosexual people), but I can definitely say that I haven't sensed much compassion and grace from Christians (no matter how "straight" or "repentant" I've been). And eventually, you want little or nothing to do with people that you are nearly certain will HATE you, if they find out about your sexual orientation.
And this is why so many (homosexual) people HIDE in sorrow and discouragement (not necessarily "shame"), things they realize (accept) they cannot change. For many (especially those who are younger) the ultimate relief is taking their own life. I know some (even certain Christians) wouldn't care if every gay person disappeared from the face of the earth; they would probably see it as God's will (and could likely support their attitude "biblically"). I would not say anything like the things I'm saying now, if I'd experienced MOST Christians being kind, compassionate and just toward homosexual people, but "sadly" that isn't what I've seen.
Sometimes, you wish you could just start life over and with a little luck,
not end up with a homosexual-orientation. Most times, you realize and remember the struggles, to include the fear of rejection, and the actual rejection you've endured. Then the struggle is eventually transformed into being able to see yourself as lovable human being; which for homosexuals isn't necessarily evident when dealing with the typical Christian. And once you get into a few encounters and experiences where you've been "dehumanized" by someone else, likely the last thing on your mind is the fact that you are "homosexual"; you just want to be loved (unconditionally).
Now, what I've shared above can be a tear-jerker to some, but that is one "sketch" of the very real effect of dealing with being
mistreated by anyone (not only Christians). My goal has always been to put a human face on what some seem to have trouble "humanizing". But it is important to do that, otherwise we end up not really communicating anything meaningful to anyone. We learn to state rules, and regulations (what we believe is "right"), without considering how those very things affect others.
-Mel-