I am coming out the closet!

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Yes, I am out of the closet. It is official.

Hmm…..

“Is she gay?” you wonder.

No. I am a woman, happily married to a man.

I have come out of the closet by speaking my truth. Coming out of the closet speaks to living your own truth. I live my own truth. What truth do I need to speak now?

The truth about how Christians treat the gay community.

I grew up the youngest of three and the youngest grandchild in the entire family. That meant everyone was my parent. I took instructions and orders all day long. I was a precocious child so I always got into some kind of trouble and everyone scolded me. I could really never live by the rules.

As a result, I learned to look good and read facial cues as to the disappointment of my elders in my behavior. So I became secretive.

One of the things I was most secretive about is that I became a Christian at a very young age. My father was atheist, my mother agnostic. I went to church only for weddings and funerals growing up. My parents told me that there was no spiritual dimension to life.

As I grew up, I saw how my fellow Christians expressed their faith in ways that made me feel ashamed to call myself a Christian. It does not deter me from being a Christian but it does deter me from churchianity as I call it.

Let us talk about gays and the standard Christian doctrine.

On Oprah recently, a young man was told by the Reverend Ed Bacon, an episcopalian priest that, “Your being gay is a gift.”

The Bible says being gay is a sin. I cannot dispute that the Bible says that. However, I am too scared to judge a so called “sin” in anyone’s life as I do not want to be judged for those many moments in my life when I was not aligned and fully connected to my Heavenly Father. That is all sin is.

I have an issue with people that try to label being gay as the worst sin in the Bible. It is the same as fornication and adultery from the Bible standpoint. Get it straight. Do not isolate gay people from other sinners. There is nothing special about this so called sin.

Second, is it a sin? Are you sure about that? I love language and the richness of language. I read somewhere by a scholar that the word for gay during Bible times was a different word than what is used in the Bible. The word used in the Bible includes a dimension of rape or violence attached to gay behavior. Not the gay behavior itself.

This gave me a lot of food for thought. What if we are interpreting words very differently from the original intention for the word? Look at how the interpretations of women in the Bible have changed over the years.

Hmmm….

Third, what if someone is born gay? Have we Christians really examined this point?

Let me explain and put a different light on it.

In Nigeria where I am originally from, every now and then some one has a child that is an albino. An albino is someone that has lost all skin pigmentation. There are white albinos but they do not visibly stand out like African albinos in an all racially black (very dark skinned) environment.

There was a time that albinos were stoned to death in certain areas. They were considered, usually, the product of the sin of the mother. Even until today, they still experience a lot of judgment and prejudice.

In the 1900’s it took a Presbyterian missionary woman from Scotland by the name of Mary Slessor to bring awareness that albinism was not a curse, just a genetic issue.

Now, clearly albinism is a medical condition as these folks easily get burned by the sun’s rays.  I am not saying that being gay is a medical condition. I do not know enough about it to say that (and I seriously doubt that.)

What I am saying is that education and science proved that these myths we so dearly hold on to, no longer serve us.

What I am also saying is that we Christians need to see the gift of being gay. If I had a disaster happened to me, I would look upon that incident and try to learn lessons from it and as long as I could say that I have grown or learned something new from that experience, then the experience is also a gift.

For gays that do not feel part of mainstream society, most of them having experienced severe prejudice and hatred from narrow minded people that experience can be a gift.  If it creates in the individual the opportunity to experience self definition and not allow other people’s definition to define them, then indeed, it is a gift. If being gay presents a person with the opportunity to dig deep and enjoy and celebrate life as who they are with what they have, then truly they have experienced the gift.

For too long, coming out the closet was something talked about by gays for gays.

Us non gays should encourage gays to come out of the closet and live their authentic best life.

Separate from coming out of the closet, every single gay person I have ever met has taken the time to develop gifts and talents within them and they contribute significantly to my world.

I probably will never hire a straight gardener ever in my life again. I am so spoiled in this area.

Stop poking the finger at someone else’s gift. What is your gift? Mind your own gift.

Churchians you are allowed to comment on this blog post but no derogatory comments please.

Thank you.