God and Gays

A touchy subject, I know. Gays, and God, can they mix? Well, sorry to disappoint those people out there who in there mind are thinking "No, God hates homosexuals." but guess what, they do. I am gay. I am happy in being gay, and find nothing about myself different other than I like different people than most guys.

I had turned myself away from God for a very long time. I went through three, four, maybe five years of my life knowing I was gay, and thinking God hates me, and so would everyone else in the world when they found out. I hated myself for it, but realized it would never change. I just went through my life, expecting to meet fire and brimstone when I died. But, I would soon change my ways.

At the age of seventeen, the age I am now, I found myself. I got the courage to tell two of my best friends that I had met online that I was gay. My heart pounded. Would they hate me? Would they even want to talk to me? I should have known better. They liked me for me, not anything else. Admittedly, that was a big part of me, but it's just that, a part. Just one small thing that makes up Isaac. I've come out to a few people since then, and I'm proud to say that that includes my step-brother, and my best friend from school.

I began to feel okay with myself. Like I wasn't such a freak of nature. Heck, maybe I was normal. This was when I began searching. If other people could love me, maybe God could too.

First, I searched for facts. I found that 10% of the population is actually gay. Would God condemn one out of every ten of his people? Then I went to the Bible. I found this passage, from
Leviticus, "Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is abomination". I thought I would die then. I couldn't believe that any God could be like this. Then I found out that this is from the same part of the Bible that says that slavery is okay, and that divorce is a crime.

Then I began to think about church. It didn't take me long to realize what the church thought. Gays are an abomination to them. But, I don't believe they are speaking the word of God. I think they are using the audience, there to listen to God's word, to meet their own selfish ends.

So then, finally, I decided if I couldn't trust the church to find God, and the Bible was too outdated to help me, that the only place I could look was within me. I did just that, and in the silence within me, something hit me, a phrase, it seemed like someone screamed it in my ear. It was loud, louder than a lot of things I've heard throughout my life. It said "God is love". Then it hit me, if God is love, he can not hate. God forgives, he loves his children. We can't be perfect. God loves me for me, and he loves you for you. Who is man to judge man, when God is the only one who may judge?