I'm working on an autobiographical thingy. Some of the old stuff I wrote impresses even me. I used to write a column, From Outside the Gender Prison, for the Arkansas GLBT newsmagazine Triangle Rising. I've posted some of those columns in my Gender Workshop series. But they weren't all strictly about gender. This is one of those others.
Though the pieces may be a bit dated, they are also timeless. Let's hope not. Maybe some day this won't need to be said.
From Outside the Gender Prison: The Question of Religion
[first appeared in Triangle Rising Newsmagazine, Little Rock, AR, November, 1997]
A student stops by my office and later writes me a note, telling me that he doesn't want to talk about "religious stuff," but rather that he wants to "tell me more about Jesus."
Another student writes in a letter to the campus newspaper that her goal, as a Christian, is "to make [the] lives [of non-believers] on earth [sic] as safe and pleasant as possible." Later in her letter she states that, "Until God occupies the heart of every man and woman alive, we will not remain silent."
Meanwhile, a man in California writes to a local newspaper stating that "only the Bible is the base for all moral judgments" and quoting Biblical scripture (from a version written at the behest of a homosexual, no less) about homosexuals being "an abomination," "detestable," and that they shall [though the implication is that they should] be put to death."
Meanwhile, Christians boycott corporations and attack organizations and individuals that merely profess their support for equal treatment of queers.
Meanwhile, prominent Christian televangelists spew anti-gay rhetoric over the airwaves, some of them going so far as calling for gays to be put to death.
Meanwhile, right here in Arkansas, a preacher buys evening time on a television to attack homosexuals and the station provides no dissenting opinion.
Meanwhile, a high school student in Fayetteville, AR, is battered for being gay.
Meanwhile, a gay/transgendered person in Fayetteville is picked up at a bar, taken to his home, and murdered.
Meanwhile, a gay teenager in Little Rock is thrown out of his home in Little Rock because he told his parents that he is gay and because their religion would therefore not allow them to continue loving him.
I have no doubt that the first student thought he was doing me a favor, nor do I doubt that he singled me out to approach because of what he would call my lifestyle and what I would call my being. But in his act of stating that he didn't want to talk about religion, but rather about Jesus, he told me that he wanted to talk * at * me, rather than * with * me, about his faith. He is not interested in hearing my views on spiritual matters, because I do not claim to be a Christian. I am, therefore, nothing more than fodder for his rhetoric.
Had he asked and then listened, he would have learned that I very much * do * believe in the teachings of Jesus, the man...but that wouldn't be enough for him. He would have learned that I don't call myself a Christian because I believe in living by the teachings of Jesus, but that I reject the institution of the Christian religion and the bastardization of Jesus' words in the name of building that institution at the expense of others. He would learn that I would rather celebrate the life, philosophy, and good acts of Jesus rather than "glory" in his death. He would have learned that Jesus did not die for my sins, because I do not believe in the concept of sin...that rather than believing in being forgiven for my "sins," I believe rather that one should strive to do what's right in the first place. And he would learn that I take full responsibility for anything that I do, and if I am to be judged for my life by some higher being or force, then I shall accept that judgment, but not the judgment of people who don't have to live my life.
The student who wrote the letter to the newspaper should, in my opinion, carefully reconsider what she has written. This country was founded on freedom of religion. That freedom is not the freedom for Christians to bully everyone who does not share their religious views until they are converted to their system of belief. Rather, the freedom of religion means just that...that I am free to believe as I choose. That should mean that I should also be free from religious harassment, but in her view it apparently does not.
I believe that a person's spiritual beliefs should be a private matter. This seems apparently to be a minority opinion. Why not, if a discussion of faith is therefore inevitable, listen to what I believe before you foist your beliefs on me?
She also said that she wishes to make the lives of people she has deemed to be non-believers "as safe and pleasant as possible." Then I ask her...as I ask the young man...to clean up her own house before she looks at mine. The people who are in need of her ministrations are the hate mongers among her own faith. When her people start expressing a "Christian attitude" towards all people on Earth, then we'll talk.
Living in Arkansas as I do, I know that this column is not likely to win me a lot of friends. To those of you who are planning on praying for my soul, I'd like to remind you that you do so for your benefit and not for mine. If it were up to me, I'd rather that you do good things and spread love, peace and joy throughout the land.
© 1997 Robyn Elaine Serven