In the Name of...?

[We now interrupt your regularly scheduled program to bring you serious thoughts. I know you were expecting pictures of hot girls and some Youtube music videos, but you're just going to have to wait a little longer. They're still coming this weekend though, I promise...]

Perhaps you should all read this fabulous Autostraddle Roundtable post: I'd Rather Laugh with the Sinners Than Die with the Saints. I am so proud to be interning there. And to spare everyone a tome in the comments section, I'm writing my own feelings here.

The first time religion and I butted heads, I wasn't even born. My mom was pregnant with me and my dad took off. They weren't married. My mother's Catholic priest (and her own mother) condemned her to hell and declared that my bastard existence might be saved if I was raised in the Church. They made my mother baptise me as a Catholic and forced her to swear on a Bible that she would raise me as such. She consented only to raising me as a Christian. The only time I went to church or Sunday school was when I was in Minnesota with my grandparents. It wasn't enough for me to pick up too much of the Catholic guilt but I still remember a lot of the mass rituals.

My mother was a punk, a partier, but calmed down a bit later when she met and married my step dad and had my little brother. I was barely 8, my mom 29. She wanted to bring us to a church (and a view of God) that wasn't so hypocritical and judgemental as she had found the Catholic Church of her youth to be. She found a local Lutheran Church through a friend and we converted and became members. The Lutheran Church didn't condemn us to hell for anything, it seemed more open and understanding. It was like the big family that I never had. And so began my long, close relationship with the LCMS. I attended church and Sunday school. Later I took classes and was confirmed. I sang in choir, I played hand bells, I taught Sunday school, I attended youth group. I could recite all the books of the Bible in order (I still can do most of them. I own roughly 10 Bibles. I've read the whole thing). During Jr. high and high school I was involved in a lot of school activities but I still found time for church activities as well. I even found time to have one pseudo-boyfriend (he was really my best friend, we never even kissed, and he is now gay) but I didn't really date or have much interest in boys. If I did like a boy he was usually girly or gay (a sign?) and in my head I still had that idea of just waiting for the one I would marry and give myself to... True Love Waits and all that. I wasn't preachy or superior about it though. One of the things my mother had instilled in me was the idea that everyone is their own person with their own thoughts, feelings, opinions, etc. and that there was nothing wrong with that. Most of my friends were (and still are) atheists or agnostic. I could never be part of a proselytizing church because to me religion and one's relationship with God is so personal, you don't throw that on others.

I was also really oblivious when it came to gay people. I guess I never saw them as somehow being different. My mom would see Rosie or Ellen on TV (I thought they were hysterical) and say things like, 'Why don't they just come out already? Everyone knows they're gay.' and I wouldn't be able to compute that. How did she know they were gay if they hadn't said? Why wouldn't they come out if it was so obvious and it was ok to be different? At the same time, especially in high school, there were so many girls that I thought were so cool, and I wanted them to like me and be my friend, and I wanted to be just like them. Still clueless, I didn't see that as a sign of my orientation- I didn't see that as crushes on girls. Even when girls hit on me (it happened a couple times) I was like, 'Hm, well, that's weird. Why me?'

I stayed home for college and commuted downtown for classes. I continued attending our family church and even attended (and chaperoned) two youth group trips to the huge LCMS Youth Gathering. One in New Orleans and one in Orlando. You know those scary videos you see of crying children in super domes, waving their hands in the air, singing? Yep. Two of those. At the same time I was making more and more gay friends in college. This wasn't the first time I was around gay people- I grew up in Chicago. My mom worked at a salon downtown where one of her coworkers/best friends was gay- But I was finally old enough to really listen and understand what was going on and hear what my pastor was saying about things like pre-marital sex and homosexuality. It was crap.

And then one semester there was this girl in one of my English lectures, oh man. She had the best (dykey) hair and clothes... I couldn't stop staring at her and I felt weird about it. That's when, at about 20, it dawned on me that I might actually like girls. And what did that mean? How could I go to church with my family and sit there and be a good Lutheran, a good Christian, if I was attracted to girls? My pastor said it was a sin. My mom didn't agree with him, but she still went to church all the time. Was it ok to go to a church and only agree some of the time? Wasn't it the point of belonging to a particular church that you should subscribe to all it's tenets? My pastor said yes, some people said no (I didn't ask directly, but youth group Bible study questions about things like abortion came up) and I didn't know what to believe. I just knew that I no longer felt comfortable sitting there, front row, next to my pastor's daughter, listening to him talk about how you shouldn't even shake the hand of a homosexual. Before, when he had said things like that, I tuned him out, silently disagreed. But now it made me sick. It made me angry. And it made me realize that by going to that church and listening to those sermons, it made people think that I believed the same things. And I didn't, I couldn't. I had many gay friends and was thinking that I might be bisexual, how could I listen to this voluntarily? I wasn't a bad person, so why should I be made to feel badly about myself?

So I began to distance myself. I did some real soul searching. I began reading up on Eastern religions, things that had already always fascinated me. I grew up in the portion of Chicago called West Rogers Park- Old Jewish Town meets Little India- and I knew a lot about Judaism and Hinduism. I, like most people, really enjoyed learning about Buddhism and it's way of focusing on yourself, of putting out only kindness. And I started joining chat rooms and groups online where I could meet and talk with other LGBT people to figure out where I fit in. I met a few girls, we hung out (secretly, of course). And as soon as I graduated college and got a full time job (and eventually moved out) I stopped going to church all together (except for holidays with family). As luck would have it, I ended up working at the gayest Barnes & Noble in all the land. It was with these coworkers that I attended my first Pride parade (and met the first girl who I would love and who would break my heart). And the same weekend I went with an old friend and got a tattoo of rainbow stars. I was 24, living on my own for the first time, being open about being queer to my friends and coworkers (I had moved on from thinking I was bisexual) and not going to church. And feeling guilty about not going to church. And not telling my family, especially my mom, what was going on in my life.

That's the thing I'm still having trouble with, coming out to my family. My mom is a fairly liberal, open-minded person, and I don't think she would have a problem with me being queer, but it's still a hard conversation to try and have. Especially since, as she gets older and gets sicker, she's gotten more religious. It's still weird to me to see and hear my mom constantly talking about God and her faith because when I was little she had an orange crew cut, smoked pot, wore crazy clothes and never mentioned God. But I understand that her faith is so important to her because she has almost died so many times and could honestly die at any time now. And then there is the rest of my family. I'm actually not really related to most of my family, they are my step dad's family and he never legally adopted me. But I grew up with them and consider them my real family. And a lot of them are conservative. Not mean or hateful, but they have conservative Christian values. That's true even of what's left of my mom's family. A lot of my cousins went to Catholic school. Some of my uncles and cousins are a bit racist, sexist and homophobic in their jokes and comments. My mom and I have always been the 'weird, liberal' ones who liked hair dye and tattoos. Now it's like I'm out here on my own. With each new tattoo my mom asks if I'm finally done. My pastor used to ask if I could pick up Radio Free Europe with my piercings. So now here I am at 27, still in the closet when it comes to my family. Afraid of what most of them will do or think of me when they find out. Afraid that one or more of them might condemn me to hell like that old Catholic priest. Afraid of not having them there. When I was little and it was just me and my mom and our little self-made family it wasn't hard for us to be who we were. Now there is so much at stake.

But in all of this I haven't lost my faith in God. I know He is still there for me, with me, queer parts and all. He isn't the one doing all this killing and condemning and hating. People are doing it in His name, but they are wrong. So much of organized religion seems to have become about hating and brain washing- they don't even understand the book they claim to preach from. I don't feel the need to go to church or subscribe to any particular religion because I don't believe that anyone has gotten it right. How could they have? Mankind is imperfect. Mankind is jealous and hateful. Mankind starts wars. Mankind seeks to put others down, to take away their rights. With all of that, why would I believe what they say about my soul, my future, my life?

I think about how to talk to my mom about this everyday. Should I call her? Write her a letter? Get in the car and drive over there? I see her once a week (or more, with this last surgery) but can never say out loud what is running through my head. Actually, I do have some family that knows I'm queer. I only got to meet my sisters about 5 years ago and I wasn't going to start things off on a lie. I didn't come right out and say anything, but I never hid anything from them. I am also Facebook friends with a few cousins who may or may not have read things that I've posted. If they've figured things out, they haven't said anything to me, which may be good or bad, depending on how you look at it. I've wanted to tell my pastor's daughter, Sarah, so badly. She and I used to be so close. When I moved away and stopped going to church we grew apart. A couple of years ago she got pregnant. She wasn't/isn't married and it was a big deal. After a lot of grief she ended up keeping the baby (a little boy called Johnny) and my pastor is still weird about it. I wanted to call her and tell her that I knew what it felt like to be an outsider, to be alienated. But really, my struggle was private. I didn't have to be the pastor's pregnant, unmarried daughter at service every Sunday. And people seem to see pre-marital sex as a lesser sin than homosexuality, even though 'all sin is equal in the eyes of God.' (A whole other argument I have about the made up levels of hell and sin- that's not in the Bible, it's a Catholic construct used to control people!) So... at least she's straight, right? I don't know.

It just makes me so sad and angry when people use God and the Bible to drive people away instead of bringing them closer. God is supposed to be about love and forgiveness and acceptance. Like the people who protested Kevin Smith and Dogma, they missed the point. Like Margaret Cho said, as Jesus would say to everyone if He were to come back today- 'THAT'S NOT WHAT I MEANT!!' I'll leave you now with a few of my favorite quotes. Quotes about love and life and acceptance. Words to live by.
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"I do not believe in a fate that falls on men however they act; but I do believe in a fate that falls on them unless they act."- Buddha

"Believe nothing, no matter where you read it, or who said it, no matter if I have said it, unless it agrees with your own reason and your own common sense."- Buddha (Yes, it's the same quote on Autostraddle but I've loved it forever and it's on my MySpace profile!)

"So the moral of this story is: There's only one true judge, and that's God. So chill, and let my Father do His job."- Salt N Peppa (None Of Your Business)

"Maybe you don't like your job; maybe you didn't get enough sleep. Well, nobody likes their job, nobody got enough sleep. Maybe you just had the worst day of your life, but, you know, there's no escape and there's no excuse so just suck up and be nice."- Ani DiFranco (Pixie)

"Be strong. Serve God only. Know that if you do, beautiful Heaven awaits."- Arrested Development (Mr. Wendel)

"No day but today"- Jonathan Larson (RENT)

"That's life. If nothing else, it's life. It's real, and sometimes it fuckin' hurts, but it's sort of all we have."- Garden State

"Pay no more attention to the things that you stand for, sit back, relax, enjoy the war from your living room. Holocaust and cable at a fraction of the cost and just to make sure that you don't get lost, here's the media, media, media..."- Bree Sharp (America)

"I wanna be in the minority, I don't need your authority, down with the moral majority, cuz I wanna be in the minority"- Green Day (Minority)
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That's all for now. And just for the record, when I say I'm queer it's because I don't identify with the word lesbian. I'm ok with the word gay, but I prefer queer. I'm attracted to women, ftm's and sometimes really genderqueer males. I think the definition is a bit different for everyone. And that's how it should be.