Letter to my dad

[ssurgul]

Good morning back.

I am angry by this. And I'm hurt. But more than that I'm disappointed. I really hoped we were past this kind of bullshit, frankly. The "Loving" God described by this "minister" really sounds much more like an abusive drunk to me. The more he loves you, the more he emotionally and spiritually abuses you? It makes no sense, and never has. I left the Church freely when their words stopped making sense and when the judgement therefrom became so absurd that it really had no bearing on my life any longer. I have no intention of returning to this type of life, ever, so long as they continue to selectively highlight such teachings to the exclusion of anything else that is inconvenient to them, and perform such wordsmithing where the obvious meaning and intent of the words written in the various books of the Bible are literally turned 180 degrees to mean precisely the opposite. If the Judeo-Christian God does indeed exist, he endowed me with a brain, an intellect. I truly have never bought off on the notion that somehow this, too, is a burden to be shed at the door and that there should never, ever be any sort of critical thought applied to anything said in the Bible, and that an old man in a shiny, fancy dress who (theoretically) lives a chaste life will somehow have the authority to tell me and others how to live a 'sexually pure' life is absurd to me. You can call it a Crisis of Faith if you like, but I do actually have legitimate faith (the unfounded belief in something entirely unprovable by scientific means) in many things.

I realize this is your own effort or calling, but it's not mine. Please stop trying to overlay my life with yours. I realize you can only act in accordance with your own heart and soul, and that you feel this is how best to express your love for me. But as I said, they're not my heart and soul. I will never willingly return to this life because I'm already damned beyond redemption by the Church's mantras. And frankly, I'm fine with that. The God I do believe in (and yes, I very much believe in God) doesn't have any sort of these hangups about his own creation. And nor does he damn someone for having feelings he himself put there.

I realize you consider it a 'choice', and you use the historical record that homosexuality can't possibly be anything else because otherwise it would have been 'bred out' of the culture long ago, but the other side of the argument is just as valid and has actual science behind it, not just Truthiness (as Colbert would call it, which means the intellect of the gut instinct entirely removed from the facts of any situation). Human sexuality is a result of a panoply of factors, both genetic and environmental. Its openness is much more a result of societal acceptance (NOT encouragement or corruption) than anything else. A portion of the populace has always been and will always be this way. Trying to Pray Away The Gay doesn't work, and results in much higher rates of suicide, a mortal sin according to the Church. Yet somehow, once again that's the victim's fault rather than the culture for decrying what is truly natural and intrinsic and it's the victim's fault rather than the people trying to forcibly change what can't be changed. I would STRONGLY recommend you watch some of the documentaries about the Reparative Therapy organizations out there. One in particular always strikes a chord in me. Two of the founders of a Reparative Therapy group ended up as lovers. Yes, they were two men. These are the founders, mind, not just random people. They described their 'proof' that the therapy 'worked'. They hand picked a tiny subset of their reported success cases (12 of them) out of hundreds because they felt those dozen men and women were the 'most likely to still be fixed'. 1 of those 12 of the HAND PICKED sample, which you might have forgotten means that this is as far from science as you can get, was still reporting themselves as straight at the time of the study. One. 1. Out of hundreds and hundreds. But because it was at least 8% of the faulty sample pool, the Religious Right likes to claim that that was living scientific proof that it works. What a farce.

Please don't send me anything like this again. Please. It does nothing to 'uplift' my soul. It does nothing whatsoever to help my 'condition'. It just proves, yet again, that the Church feels compelled to do precisely what Christ said not to do which is force others to the life that Christ said to lead by example, not by force. It just reinforces that the Religious Right truly will stop at nothing to reinstitute a Theocracy in this country, this country who has as a founding principle the separation of Church and State. This country where while people are supposed to be free to practice ANY religion they choose, they are equally free to live without ANY religion in their lives at all. The people who are responsible for such things would do much, much, much better to actually read all of Christ's words, rather than cherry-picking them. No where in his own words do I find a single thing anti-gay. The closest, which is what I always hear, is the anti-divorce answer he gave where he said God joined one man and one woman together, and let no man break them apart. That's it. The chapter, according to my own Bible is labeled "About Divorce". Not "About How It's Not Adam And Steve!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!".

--
Marcus

"I will go to the animal shelter and get you a kitty cat.
I will let you fall in love with that kitty cat. And then
on some dark, cold night I will steal away into your home
and punch you in the face!"
-Sue Sylvester, Glee S1


On 7/19/2011 4:42 AM, mhamil1017@aol.com wrote:
> Good Morning Marcus,
>
> Please don't be angry with me, but I'm sending this on to you for your perusal. If you're offended by it just delete it and go on with your life. It's just something to think about.
>
> Love ya'
> Dad
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: RealCatholicTV.com <info@realcatholictv.com>
> To: mhamil1017@aol.com
> Sent: Fri, Jul 15, 2011 1:02 pm
> Subject: A real GAY man
>
> Dear Friend in Christ,
>
> There is nothing happy about the gay lifestyle – although with Christ, those
> afflicted with the cross of homosexual attraction can find true joy. Please take
> a few minutes to watch this video and pass it to your friends and family.
>
> http://www.youtube.com/user/RealCatholicTV?feature=mhee#p/u/0/jgnfpEY59XU
>
> GOD Bless you and your loved ones,
>
> Michael Voris
> ~senior executive producer, RealCatholicTV.com
>
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