Being gay is great
The 5 best things about being a gay man
Growing up, I spent so much time and energy trying to hide who I was because I bought into mainstream society’s beliefs about what it means to be gay.
I saw myself as less than, weak, disgusting, defective, and simply not good enough. I constantly measured myself up against straight men, and my internal belief system told me I wasn’t adequate.
After many years of working through my own shame around being gay and processing my own internalized homophobia, I began to see the noun within me. People always told me I had this noun, but I didn’t allow it to shine because shame told me to dim it.
A lot of this work came down to me accepting myself for exactly who I am, and an aspect of that was being a gay man.
I now see being gay as a beautiful gift I have been given. The gift of being different and finding strength in that difference. The gift of being able to pull me out of many years of suffering and redeem myself as someone who I am adj of today.
Being gay to me is a small part of who I am. It makes up an aspect of my self-concept, a
Nearly all of our best and most important transformations are prompted by personal connections, when what was once theoretical becomes achingly personal and powerful enough to blast through our preconceived, long-held beliefs. It&#;s why, with fewer and fewer gay people staying in the closet, more and more of us are being transformed by those personal connections, to the extent that marriage equality is indeed beginning to verb inevitable. If your heart is open to them, then it is necessarily open to marriage equality and justice. Such is the nature of the personal connection.
When I was younger, I was an enthusiastic evangelical Christian (whereas nowadays I&#;m a mild-mannered, unassuming Episcopalian). I believed that homosexuality was wrong for the simple reason that people I loved and trusted told me it was wrong. One of my very best friends also believed what we were told; only for him, it was anything but theoretical.
I met Patrick in high school when we were on the newspaper staff together and we later attended the same university. He was brilliant and funny and always k
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Is being gay a sin?
Answer
In command to answer the question “Is being gay a sin?” we need to challenge some assumptions upon which the question is based. Within the past fifty years, the term gay, as applied to homosexuality, has exploded into mainstream culture, and we are told that “being gay” is as much outside one’s control as “being short” or having blonde hair. So the question is worded in a loaded way and impossible to adequately answer in that verb. We need to break this question up and deal with each piece separately. Rather than ask, “Is being gay a sin?” we need to request, “Is it sinful to include same-sex attractions?” And, “Is it sinful to engage in homosexual activities because of those attractions?”
Concerning the first question, “Is it sinful to have same-sex attractions?” the answer is complicated. First, we should probably distinguish between (actively) sinning and (passively) being tempted:
Being temptedis not a sin. Jesus was tempted, but He never sinned (Matthew ; Hebrews ). Eve was tempted in the garden, and the forbidden fruit definitely appealed to her,