Thou Shalt Not Love - Part 3 or Jump, Monkey, Jump!

From the author:

So I came to think that perhaps God was not helping me change because he rejected me as a person. After all, evangelical leaders said thousands of homosexuals had changed their sexuality with God's help, yet God apparently was not helping me in those efforts.

I tried changing my sexuality so many times. I am ashamed of some of the things I did to try to change. I also went the evangelicals' way about it: through prayer, lots of Bible study (which is so confusing and contradicatory), even went to a "healer." My conclusion was that there was either something terribly wrong with me or God hated me so much that I was not worth curing. But on the other hand, I was always told that God doesn't make junk. He made me, so what did that make me?

One preacher on TV I can't stand right now is Ted Haggerty. He claims to be cured of his sexual orientation but admits he still has homosexual urges. Okay, how is that different? I liked the way he attempted to stand up for Jennifer Knapp the other night on Larry King in that we should not judge one another; God is the ultimate judge. But he still kept going back to how homosexuality is a sin. After reading Thou Shalt Not Love I no longer believe that it is. Yes, you can change the behavior but not the orientation. And if you change your behavior you will be miserable for the rest of your life because you will either 1) be alone the rest of your life and celibate, or 2)lie to others the rest of your life and be miserable because you are spending it with the wrong person. Personally, I think God wants me to be happy. I am his child. Don't we all want our children to be happy, fulfilled and with someone they love as long as that person is not hurting them?

I think Ted Haggerty is giving gay Christian men especially a false hope. It's not the homosexuality that binds you up and makes you feel trapped; it's the hiding from the homophobes.

Today is going to be a historic day for me. I am friending a person and it is going to out me to a lot of people I'm not sure I want outed to (parents of my ex-students). But the time has come! Everytime I come out, a monkey jumps off my back. One day I will be monkey free! (It was hard finding a jumping monkey photo!)