I wrote this because a kid in my old high school committed suicide because of anti-gay bullying; I thought I'd write this apology to those my religion has hurt, because I feel it needs to be said.
I am a Christian; but I am also a bisexual, transgender(ed) liberal. (I'm trying to avoid misusing pronouns, so please forgive the parenthesis.) And the thing of it is, I think the irrational, pie-throwing, mud-slinging, hypocritical fundies we call "Christians" are giving those of us who actually read the bible a bad name.
Yeah, I said it. The ones who give Christians a bad name - the ones who scream about how all the gays are going to hell - are no better than the people they constantly claim to be victimized by. In fact, I wonder if some of them have even read their Bibles.
The gays probably aren't going to hell, or if they are it's not because they're doing anything wrong. It's because Christians aren't doing their jobs. We weren't put here to be causing all of these issues; we were put here to make the world a better place, to love our neighbors as if they were family (although I tend to love my neighbors a bit more than I love my family, to be honest). And to everyone my religion has hurt: I'm sorry. I'm sorry for every GLBT kid who commits suicide; I cry for about three hours every time I hear about it. (And yes, I do wind up crying a lot because of that. My RA just walks past me if he sees me crying now.) Let me just say that this is terrible, and you don't deserve this; what's more, even Jesus says you don't deserve this. Even God says you don't deserve this.
God is love. It says that multiple times in the Gospels, which are pretty much the only books anyone pays any attention to (because I don't think we're making women marry their rapists). It never says that God is power, or God is knowledge; it simply says that God loves with all his heart, which is what I (as a Christian) try to strive for. I can rectify myself to my bisexuality, to my transgenderism (forgive pronouns please) and to my liberalism because I know that God doesn't care.
So why don't they?
Why can't we see past all of this hate to see what God's trying to say? Why do we have to argue about abortion and homosexuality? We're not supposed to be the villains in this scenario; in fact, the LGBT community is more Christlike than these so-called Christians who like to debate stupid crap instead of trying to solve actual problems. We could solve world hunger if we stopped arguing about things that everyone knows God probably doesn't care about; so why don't we try? Why don't we try to solve problems everyone wants to be solved?
I'll tell you why. We're failures as Christians. We've clung to societal norms (including racism, for instance) for so long that we have no idea how to handle change. We're too busy clinging to our ideals (which Jesus says are wrong on multiple occasions) that we wind up doing more harm than good. (And for the record, I am not the only one who believes this - there are tons of rational Christians out there, I promise.)
"Let he who is without sin cast the first stone." That is a verbatim quote from Jesus, during one of the most important sermons of his ministry. (John, chapter 8, verse 7.) And you know what? It seems like we can't even manage that without squabbling about questions we'll never get the answers to. I'm sorry for that, and I'm sorry many of you have to suffer for it.
I really, truly am.
I know I'll get flack for writing this, but I think this is exactly what God would be saying if he were standing here. And even if I didn't, I feel this needs to be said; we don't know who's being hurt in these useless squabbles we keep having with one another, and I for one am not willing to risk another suicide for the sake of an ideal which is probably wrong.
Forgive us, for we know not what we do.
EDIT: I wrote this at about 4 AM, so please forgive me for any offensive terminology. I did put the phrase "No better than the Pharisees" in there, because I was referring to the Gospels (in which Jesus did rail against the Pharisees); but I meant no anti-Semitism.