reading through your post, and the following questions and answers made me cry so hard… you’re so confident and heartfelt, and i can see that you love god and your husband very clearly. my very conservative parents tell me how wrong homosexuality is and i’ve heard the verses over and over (especially since they found out about my closet relationship), but something inside of me tells me that there is more to it… stories like yours keep me on the fence. it’s so hard to know what to believe.

best wishes.

Thanks for sharing your heart here. My dad is my biological dad. He has a partner of 32 years. I’m conservative Christian. How all that works, I’m not exactly sure – I just know I’m not ready to stop wrestling with it – because I believe that in our wrestling and attempts at bridge building is where we discover the most beautiful parts of who we are and who God is.

This is what I know
1 – I love my dad and his partner. They are part of my family.
2 – I believe God does not make mistakes. Period (Psalm 18:30)
3 – I believe God is sovereign over all things (that means my life and the life of my family and the life of the church)

This is what I don’t know
1 – How all of this is supposed to work together neatly

I wrote about it on my blog. It is kind of neat to see a dad write about it too, so thanks I’ve met other kids of gay-male families talk about some of their experiences, but not dads.

Thanks for sharing your heart…

Jenny

I question whether or not you should date anyone, male or female, until you get a clearer idea of what you’re moving towards. Dating’s an opportunity to find compatibility for the future. Do we share common interests? Is s/he a good person? Is s/he moral? Do we have similar goals? Can I see myself growing old with this person?

I don’t know if it’s fair to your boyfriend or for a future girlfriend to get involved with someone who’s uneasy with the very nature of your relationship. I mean, what happens to your boyfriend if you ultimately decide that dating guys is wrong? What happens if you marry a woman like your old professor did and that ultimately doesn’t turn out because you’re gay?

I guess, I’m suggesting that it might be a good thing to take a break on dating anyone until you’re less conflicted about your sexual orientation and your religious identity.

Anyway, thanks again for sharing!

I appreciate greatly both of what you have to say, because what you have discussed with each other are the two exact voices that I constantly battle with in my head every second of my life.

Growing up in a strong loving Christian home with ssa all my life, I am still seeking answers and finding peace with my sexuality. Honestly, I appreciate Bayah’s words and I do believe he is spoken out of love and grace for people like me. I am 23 years old and currently dating a man that is pretty much an atheist. However, he is a man of love and holds high moral values and ethics. He respects my Christian beliefs and agrees to not have sex with me, as for right now, as I continue to seek answers and wisdoms from God and from loving people like you all.

My college professor is open with his ssa feelings, but decided to get married with a woman and have 3 young daughters, because he believed it was the right thing to do as a follower of Christ. I looked up to him and asked him for guidance and prayer for my life during my college years. Because of his testimony, I also started to have desires to seek relationships with women. Soon after I graduated, I found out that he has left the school and his family to be with his boyfriend.

This story saddens me greatly and I have great fear whether this is something that would ever happen to me. BUT, even if I continue to stay with my boyfriend and eventually get married with him, I still have doubts in my mind because I know what the Bible clearly says. I also have great fear that when the judgement day comes, I will find out that I have been led astray and have been so selfish because I’ve followed my own heart, not God’s.

Let me ask my very own fellow gay and lesbian brothers and sisters, “If you really claim yourself to be a Christian, what’s the purpose of your life?” For me as a homosexual, I am continually growing to have the pure desire to glorify God everyday of my life. My ultimate goal in life is to please God and raise Him high, being fully satisfied while doing it.

I have no idea where God will lead me in the future, being married to a woman? to a man? or even stay celibate and single until I meet my Heavenly Father face to face. Honestly, celibacy will be miserable, not going to lie, especially for someone like me. But it just might be God’s calling in my life, and I believe He is gracious and loving and will guide me to the way that He wants me to go, if I honestly turn to Him.

The purpose for my comment is to encourage everyone of you who is reading this post and I do believe that we all have different lives that God has called us to live. Praying for all of you.

That’s a lot of questions. I don’t know if I should answer them one by one or just give you the gist of things. I don’t feel threatened by the fact that people sin because I’m a sinner like the rest of them. Jesus said the road is narrow and there will be few who enter His Kingdom. It’s true I fear for my soul, perhaps a bit more than most, but I’d fear a lot more if I chose the path of people who think God is just their buddy. Yes, He shows mercy, but He also embodies justice.

We are supposed to pull people aside who sin and try to correct them. If that doesn’t work, we can ask a friend to help, and if after a third attempt with a priest, it’s alright to leave them to it and shake the dust off of our feet. (Can you help me find this passage by St. Paul? It’s late, and you might be able to help me.)

When Jesus told us not to judge, he did not mean we can’t judge behaviours. How could we function without making judgements each day on what constitutes good or bad behaviour, much less teach our children? There would be little point in Jesus instructing us on how to live if we weren’t allowed to put His teachings in practice. And how can we do that without judging good from bad, privately and as part of a community? Matthew Chapter 7 can shed some light here. The point is not a prohibition against recognizing the sins of others but rather against passing judgement in a spirit of arrogance, forgetful of one’s own faults.

Nowadays, it’s considered bad behaviour to correct anybody.

I always scan my days to see where I’ve failed. I ask God for His forgiveness, and then try to improve. In addition, I participate in the Sacrament of Reconciliation.

Now, to non-Catholics, I appear as a guilt-ridden neurotic. (Were those your thoughts? lol) But in the end, I don’t get judged by you. I get judged by God. Guilt has a definite purpose. You aren’t supposed to dwell on your guilt but rather use it to tell you to get a sin absolved. Once it’s absolved, you can perform penance but you should not dwell on that guilt ever again, nor would you be inclined to. If you go to Reconciliation often enough, you’d probably be LESS guilt-ridden than your non-Catholic friends. I have found that people who don’t believe in Catholic confession end up confessing to their buddies, online, on youtube, on television, and many other places with no confidentiality like you get with a priest.

Whenever you see a trial in which the defendant doesn’t feel guilty or won’t admit his guilt, the media will point out that that’s a problem. They will label him or her a sociopath. So guilt is recognized to be a necessary thing when we’ve sinned. Unless it comes to sexual sins. Then guilt is supposed to be tossed out the window.

Every sin is worthy of close examination, including the ones you mention. I worry about them all. I’m actually quite ineffectual but I keep trying to help those around me in a hundred ways before I get called home.