“Who in here has had sex?”
Everyone in the crowd at San Diego State raised their hands, exchanging looks as though to say, “This shit’s ridiculous.” The lady who asked the question turned against everyone and shouted,
“Well, guess what! You all deserve hell!”
A somewhat terrifying statement, yes. But an even more terrifying statement lies in the looks the students were exchanging.
There is an issue on our hands here and it regards our perception of Christianity and in turn Christians. As of now, we live in a very liberal society where it becomes easy to “hate” or bash on Christians.
What we often “hate” on of course, lies in our perceptive experiences with the bigoted opinions of extremist political figures regarding their beliefs on homosexuality, abortion, and other controversial topics.
Figures like Michele Bachmann or Paul Ryan spew inflated statements regarding “God” and their “mission” to make America right again, however we often let this affect our personal perceptions of Christians.
End result, many liberals with liberal values regarding these topics, take it to their own to attack the Christians in their lives and shove their beliefs down other’s throats.
Especially on a college campus, it leads for many of those who are Christians to feel uncomfortable and stay “in-the-closet” regarding their faith.
Why is it that some of us want to march for equality, yet feel like we have to attack conservative religious beliefs to achieve our point?
I’m gay. I understand why Christians don’t believe homosexuality is right. But, I don’t feel like it’s in my best interest to try to convince Christians that “love is love” or try to validate my identity in any way.
I don’t believe it’s moral nor generally human to attack someone’s faith in attempt to prove my point. It’s downright disrespectful to try to do so.
Sure it would be nice to change people’s minds about gay marriage, gay rights, abortion, poverty, and other topics regarding religion, however does this need to be achieved by shouting our liberal beliefs at the top of the hill without even trying to consider the opposite perspective?
It’s this “liberal hate-speech” of sorts that makes me want to disassociate with this perspective.
As a gay person, I am tired of liberal candidates representing how I feel about Christians and being told that we are on one side and they are on another. I don’t like how we must assume a hostile attitude towards Christianity because of an agenda, that I might not entirely agree with.
But it’s written in my deal as a gay person apparently. In the terms and agreement that I was not aware of. That, as default, as a gay I must hate Christians.
However, when in reality, I love many Christians in my life. Some of them do disagree with my identity, but still love me unconditionally because that’s what true Christianity is about. Loving the sinner, and hating the sin.
And some Christians may have lost that along the way.
But what I find troubling, is someone who is Christian hesitate in saying they’re Christian in front of me because they assume that I will, by being gay and default, judge them. They are unsure and insecure regarding their faith which is the complete opposite of what they should be doing.
It’s a self-induced closet many Christians are forcing themselves into. It’s a tragic reflection of our own bigotry. The Christian Closet is something we all need to focus on eradicating.
The issue partly lies in the religious extremists who claim to represent the Christians of the world.
Aaron Sorkin’s genius show, The Newsroom, addresses this issue very well as an identity theft.
Maggie states that these religious extremists have committed an identity theft. They have essentially robbed Christians, who may or may not agree with these extremists, of their identities by placing a false stereotype in the public’s minds.
In a post 9/11 world, we saw the same blind discrimination happen to the Muslims who live in the U.S. The sociopaths who called themselves Muslims, after the tragedy of 9/11 in our eyes became representative of all of those who identified as Muslim.
The issue lies with the religious extremists, however it also lies in our superficial perception of people themselves. We tend to lump every Christian or Muslim within the same camp without making distinctions between people and sociopaths. What the Newsroom doesn’t address is that maybe it’s our fault for creating the Christian Closet.
There is nothing we can do to change religious extremists, but we can change ourselves.
We need to see the distinction between true Christians and downright bullies.
Any world in which people are uncomfortable being themselves is a world worth improving. Whether it regards their sexuality, faith, or ethnicity, closets and chains exist because they are meant to broken.
People are more than their religion or their sexuality or their political views. This country is more than a religion or it’s politics.
We need to realize this that there are more important things to focus on than someone’s religion or politics, their humanity.
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