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I've always been supportive of LGBTQ rights, and I've always been very open about it. When I was about 14, I came out as bi, and for the most part it hasn't ever been an issue for anyone. Right after coming out, I was at a religious friend's house for a party. Her mother sat down with me at the party and told me that I really needed to reconsider my "decision" and that homosexuals and bisexuals were the equivalent of paedophiles. I was told stories of people who thought they were gay but then they prayed and were "healed" and are now straight. I'm still disturbed by that conversation today. I end up thinking about kids who are raised in those homes to believe those things. I am glad that I was able to walk away from that hateful conversation that was disguised as "God's love" but I feel terrible for those who can't.

Librophile13 6 May 14
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16 comments

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0

Child abuse

1

I think too much, I was a weird kid but hey studying religion and history led me to atheism too.

If you dig into history, most cultures condemned homosexuality. The fact so many disparate cultures separately evolved to condemn homosexuality, especially gay men, says there was some utility tens of thousands of years ago or whenever those social mores evolved.

This is just my pet theory, I've never heard anyone advocate for it, but I've also had some smart, educated people think and criticize this.

If your society is barely getting by, then you need to breed as much as possible. Gay men who don't want to pass on their genes are just evil, who cares if they like other men....gotta get those 15 year old girls pregnant.

Women's consent doesn't matter much, heck we can just capture random girls and get them pregnant. Plus we'll create another social more where women get their validity from popping out a dozen children. Which might be why rape was fairly common in many cultures.

Obviously this is an abbreviated version, but I think one can see how uneducated people who mostly look ahead a few weeks but don't want their society to be extinct evolved these social mores. Obviously explaining how these things may have evolved doesn't excuse them, sometimes figuring out HOW a problem came to be helps negate the problem.

Unless I'm WAYYYY off base, humans aren't going to be extinct from lack of popping out kids soon, so the utility in these social mores is totally gone.

A hundred thousand years ago, rigidity in fairy tales had some utility, heck "social glue" is still high utility and humanity needs to figure out getting millions of people moving in the same direction without the threat of hellfire.

One of my favorite mental health sayings is, what you once did for survival is now hurting or limiting you. I think religion falls into that category. I'm not even sure if this makes sense to people, but it has made sense to several highly educated GLBTQ supporters

1

I called my mother this weekend of course who raised her children as devout Catholics. I am one of two who no longer believes. She talked about how good she was with us as little ones, but she was not very good with us as teenagers. The problem is she like this meme I am attaching thought we should believe what she believed because of the authority of the Catholic Church. Which is bullshit.

3

Hi. My dad raised me to be homophobic. I got over that though, still it took longer than I feel it should have.
Perhaps the biggest contribution to beating my indoctrination was that as a shy young adult I never had a girlfriend, never spoke about girls to my family, mostly just kept to myself. Then I met my future wife, took her to meet the family and all was well. Month's later they spoke to me to say how glad and surprised they were that I wasn't gay. I took this in for a few weeks before I spoke to my wife about it.
Those fuckers, my family, the people I did everything I could to help and make happy, those shitbags thought they'd left me in the closet!! Me. Their son, grandson, nephew or brother. I wasn't in the closet but they thought I was. Made me feel for people who do come out. Changed my perspective of my family as well.

2

You should perhaps have asked her when she "decided" she was straight.
You might point out also the vast majority of paedophiles are straight and usually incestuous, so you are three for three in the negative there I assume.
The wilful ignorance of religious bigots is something to be educated out of people by persuasion, gentle kindness and a good example, if all that fails consider them an evil fuckwit and leave them out of your life.

0

Oh I agree with you totally. Families of origin and other do-gooders are often very damaging. That is why it is so important for people who are open minded to share their beliefs as openly as those narrow minded religious and homophobe people who spews their poison.

@Shelton yep, it is essential as there is just way too much narrowmindedness out there

1

Religion is brainwashing & indoctrination, faith is a construct to keep the masses in check & ever fearful of their betters fearing any change to the status quo would bring chaos

4

I'm going to be honest here - I don't understand bisexuality and while I'm not going to get into the reasons why - I do have this other view and that is - it's none of my damn business - it's not my place to judge and it's not my place to offer an opinion either way and I carry that into the voting booth. However, when someone feels the need to go public with private matters - they open themselves up to all kinds of opinions - why? You came out for a reason - likely because you wanted approval, a hug or more contacts. I don't wear my sexuality on my sleeve - it doesn't define me - my character does. And so if I were gay - I wouldn't feel the need to make a grand announcement I'd just go about living my life and if I'm seen holding my boyfriend's hand - well, it's really not necessary for me to come out with anything. I would also understand my audience and as a result wouldn't expose my partner or myself to unnecessary BS. I would simply avoid the jerks (that includes family) and not lose a night's sleep over it. I don't need others to accept me to feel validated - they don't screw 'em.

Nice, and you are right, but in a world where the generations that had one to hide who they were for fear of litigation and imprisonment for being in love with the wrong person still live, so "coming out" to many is still a rite of passage.
It won't be in a few years, and people will look back and wonder why all the fuss, but for now demanding normalisation by exposure is a still necessary.
As for understanding someone else's sexuality, why bother, acceptance is needed understanding is not. A person can love a girlfriend and a boyfriend, and so long as the relationship is non abusive, who cares? Yes there will be bad relationships in any mix of genders, some people people are just arseholes, gay, straight, bi, whatever, but lots are not and so sharing the love is surely a good thing, especially in this hate filled mad world we are surviving in at the moment.
Cheers. 🙂

I see what you're saying and a lot boils down to attitude.

My neighbor's son is GAY, the whole damned world knows he and his friends suck dick. They talk about it all the time, especially when people first meet them. It almost seems like they're too gay. I've also known lesbians who ostracize straight men, one lady was so crazy some gay and lesbian friends we had in common sat her down and said, grow up!

Hey maybe that's just an over-reaction to being suppressed/oppressed for most of your life.

On the other hand, some are more mature. One local couple has been together > 15 years. They should feel completely comfortable holding hands, kissing hello and goodbye and even in Utah they mostly do even when others have a reaction.

lol, not that it matters to any of the people, but while I accept all of them I only choose to hang out with the more mature gay and lesbian people. I'd rather hear about their lives, what they're reading...v all the wacky drama.

1

I am a person who believes that God does not necessarily exist, but in response to this, I still have to say that people hold prejudice against certain groups because they don't grasp the following things about their own beliefs:

  1. They can't actually know who God hates or loves without appealing to authority ( aka "We know this because the Bible/clergy says it" )

  2. They tend to view other groups in terms of impressions

  3. They tend to also be impressionistic about everything

  4. To practice a religion effectively, you have to kind of study the subject matter in an academic context, and gain an understanding of it, otherwise scripture is basically just a bunch of statements.

  5. Just because some of their opposition doesn't have necessary counter-arguments or corrections, it doesn't make them correct

  6. They largely follow their religion out of their own incapability of mind. It shows in their culture, and tastes in political policy

3

I have never understood the alleged connection between any disapproved sexual orientation / behavior and pedophilia. Judging from the story you related, the connection was never established by your interlocutor, either. It is just a telling attempt to make disapproved behavior seem worse by association with something that is truly consequentially harmful. Which exposes the intellectual barrenness and bankruptcy of their non-arguments. There is no objective discussion of actual harms (because there aren't any); rather, it's pure ginned-up "yuck factor".

Of course there are campfire stories of people who "prayed away the gay" or what have you, that is to be expected and some of them may even be true in the shallow sense that they tried and for a time succeeded in denying their true feelings and desires in exchange for the temporary relief from denial of social reciprocity and acceptance. Good for you that you did not succumb to that particular losing gambit.

9

My ex wife is the same as your friend's mother, my daughter is gay and getting married next year.
You can guess how things have gone down in recent years.
Of course, me being the atheist obviously caused my daughter to be gay according to my ex and all her friends and family.
My daughter is awesome, happy and loving, so proud of her in every way.
Just be you, ignore the ignorant.

I empathise, my niece is gay and engaged to be married, her family have utterly rejected her, so my wife and I are now the closest family she has.
They now hate us as much as they hate hr for "enabling" her, which is frankly BS.
I have no time for this need to feel superior to others by allowing festering hate for a triviality to become an all consuming negative passion.
Life is too short for negative shit like this to be important.

4

Reason #842 why religion is harmful!

2

That sort of approach to any reasonable therapeutic goal is terrifying, let alone such nonsense deconversion ideas. The only thing needed there is dogmatic DEconversion, since we're all born atheists to start.

5

People like that are what give religion it’s shitty image. Well, one of the reasons I’m fairly certain that if there is an omniscient being out there, he doesn’t care who we love. Because, by their own story (the Bible), we are all committing incest.

But good for you for being able to get away from those small minded morons. Follow what you believe in. I’ve always preached (pun intended) that I don’t care who/what people are attracted to. Unless it’s kids or people who aren’t able to give consent. And you being open to both men and women, you double your chance for finding love and someone who will appreciate you for who you are. So keep kicking ass!

5

They are the broken ones. They are the ones suffering internal turmoil because their faith has dragged them so far away from knowing what it is to be human that they cannot function they way humans are meant to function.

1

You should never have had to hear that. Ignorance is rampant.

I agree, and additionally, people badly need to learn about the groups they are not apart of. How can people live without this kind of knowledge?

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