Am I a bad person? (LGBTQ+ acceptance discussion) ❤️
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craftyxgrl
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1 week ago by craftyxgrl
So basically as a Christian, I grew up being told not to support the LGBTQ+ community, but now I don't actively do anything to show any support, but I respect it. The community isn't harming me so I don't do anything to hate on them. But I don't interact or engage with anyone from it really (like they're not in my close friends circle) Anyways, is this a bad way to handle this or not, any thoughts? I am trying to be more accepting of a person but my background doesn't really help. Open to thoughts from anyone from the community, christians, or anyone with commentary!!
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rubie_irl
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1 week ago by rubie_irl
Hey lovie,No, you're not a bad person AT all so let's clear that up first. I think the way you handle it with your values is great and what works for you works for you! I know there's not a lot of people in the community around you but as for me, half of my friends are bi. I come from the same background as you know and to be transparent, I found it difficult to accept them at first but eventually came to the conclusion that we're all people who deserve respect and most importantly, they are my friends and they care about me. I also always have believed in treating others how you want to be treated. Love you Roxy! |
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BobTheCat_
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1 week ago by BobTheCat_
Hello! I'm a Christian too, and i disagree with LGBTQ+ as welll. Unless you hate them for no reason other than their life choices, you are not a bad person. Everybody has opinions in life and that is fine. Just to clarify for others reading this, I'm not a homophobe and i still respect you as a person, i just disagree with you.
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bluemoona
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6 days, 22 hours ago by bluemoona
Hey, I completely understand where you're coming from. I am a Christian as well and I think that a lot of people get the concept of not supporting a lifestyle or choice as not loving/supporting the person making that choice. As Christians we are called to love as Jesus loved us, which means loving people even when we disagree with them or they disobey Gods commands. You can love people in the LGBT+ community without loving or condoning their group. No hate to anyone. ❤️
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CHENNYYY
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6 days, 11 hours ago by CHENNYYY
I'm a Christian who doesn't fully support the lgbtq+ but I have a lot of friends from that community and I respect that. God tells us to love our neighbors, for we can't love him without loving his creations. Even though we disagree on things, its not an excuse to avoid them in any kind of way. Ive invited a trans person to my church before and he had a good time with my youth group. God's love doesnt exclude ❤️ ❤️ ❤️ ❤️
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Yelena09
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6 days ago by Yelena09
@BobTheCat_ hi! Just letting you know it’s okay to not see eye to eye, but that being lgbtq+ isn’t a choice. I am under the Christian umbrella (Methodist) and am lgbtq. You can’t control who you are. And that’s perfectly fine. I don’t think God is worried that I don’t consider certain people attractive, I think He just cares that I’m a decent person trying to help his cause. Honestly just accepting people and treating them equally is all anyone asks for. If they are your friends, still love them as you would any other of your friends
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BobTheCat_
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5 days, 21 hours ago by BobTheCat_
@Yelena09 Thanks for your input! I have my own reasons for believing what i believe but i would rather not discuss those, as i have gotten distracted from my main objective on this website lol: making bracelets!
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slin
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5 days, 19 hours ago by slin
@Yelena09 I agree with you completely as someone who is part of the LGBTQ community, God doesn't care who you love but who you are as a person. Its hard for me to want to continue and grow my faith when people can't support me unconditionally like Jesus does. There is so much hate and division between the Christian and LGBTQ community and I wish we could both love one another. Many of you on this form don't accept the LGBTQ community and it is misleading to title the form as so. It is more of a tolerance than an acceptance. If you would not fight for fellow people in the LGBTQ community for their right to marry or to exists, you don't accept them, you tolerate them. Please be kind to each other is all I'm asking. Thank you.
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slin
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5 days, 19 hours ago by slin
Would love more input from those in the Lgbtq community!
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keyboard
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5 days, 17 hours ago by keyboard
Heya, coming to you with no judgement, but a very different approach to this. I am a part of the LGBT+ community and I am not Christian, nor was I raised Christian, but I did grow up in a pretty religiously diverse area (Christian, Muslim, Hindu) and have a lot of friends who consider themselves religious in one way or another, and a lot of friends who are religious and gay! I’m going to broaden your question a little. Bear with me! To think about the title of your post and your big question - “am I a bad person?” - we need to think about what a ‘bad’ person is. Are you a bad person when you don’t give someone on the street your spare coins? Or when you don’t make your bed in the morning when your mum tells you to? Are we bad people for eating bananas when the global banana industry relies on modern day slavery? And then, how do we reflect on that? Do we try to eat organic eggs because we understand the cruelty involved in factory farming? Do we turn the tap off while we brush our teeth to reduce water waste, even if we just had a 40 minute shower? My point being, we are all capable of making ‘good’ and ‘bad’ decisions, and therefore capable of being 'good' and 'bad' people in the eyes of others. Here, there’s nothing strictly objective about what is ‘good’ or ‘bad’! A vegan might think eating meat is bad, but a burger chef might think eating meat is good. It’s all perspective, and it’s all opinion. As @Sin mentioned, we might also think about how “toleration” is different from “acceptance”, which is also really important to think about. We’ve all been in situations where we can feel that the person we’re talking to is just ‘tolerating’ us. Maybe they’re politely laughing at our jokes but they’re looking away, or they’re making eye contact with someone else, or texting while talking. These are little things that are perhaps “tolerating” someone, but are also rejecting them at the same time. I think it’s really meaningful to ask this question in good faith, and it’s worth considering how maybe our backgrounds make us more or less susceptible to certain beliefs. I also looked at your profile and saw that you were 15; you're still young and probably still in high school, and a lot of your life exists within that structure. As your world expands and you travel to new places, work with new people, and discover things and ways of life you’ve never even imagined, you will meet people who live in ways so unlike your own. Each of these experiences will give you more to reflect on as your life continues. There will be times in your life where a close friend will make homophobic jokes, and you’ll have to decide whether or not you want to call them out on it, smile quietly, or laugh loudly. There will also be times in your life where a close friend will tell you that they’re gay, and you’ll have to decide whether you want to accept them or reject them. Your background only means so much, and, in a lot of ways, it gives you something to hide behind. It’s easy to question nothing, and to accept that things are the way you’ve always been told they were. It takes a lot of bravery to question that, to perhaps be "wrong", and for some people can be a really powerful, terrifying experience - you can imagine how it might feel for LGBT+ people who’ve been raised as and lived as devout Christians their whole life, married with kids, realising this at 55 years old. Point being, I’ve met Christian people who hate LGBT+ people because their church told them to, and that’s one thing. I’ve met LGBT+ people who hate Christianity because their family kicked them out when they were 13 years old because they were following what their church told them. Both of these groups “tolerate” each other, (i.e. they can sit next to each other in a Subway), and both of these groups think they are “right”/”good” and the other is “wrong”/”bad”. In both cases, it's perspective, and you could probably back up both of these decisions with a dozen bible quotes on both sides. Does the vegan or the burger chef align more with your values? And why? What creates our values, and can that change? A vegan who develops health problems later on might need to be open to incorporating more meat in their diet, and adjust their values accordingly. A burger chef might fall in love with a hindu woman - a religion where eating beef is generally forbidden - and adjust their values accordingly. I believe, more than anything, it is up to us in each moment to recongise the impact of our actions on the people and the world around us. The burger chef, who loves beef, but is actually a huge environmentalist, might read an article about how eating less meat reduces our carbon emissions, and, after reflecting on that, doesn't simply "tolerate" the vegans who come into his resturant by serving them a side of fries, but instead he adds a vegan burger to the menu. |
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Yelena09
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5 days, 15 hours ago by Yelena09
@slin thank you for saying what I wanted to! It’s not as uncommon for lgbtq folks to be more out and open as it was thirty-forty years ago, therefore we need to accept that people like us exist, and we cannot change, and we won’t be quiet about it. But it’s religious standards (SOME, not all) that do a lot of us mental and sometimes even physical harm. Tolerance does not equal acceptance. You can tolerate a spider in your home but not want it to be there (bad analogy but it was the first one I could think of) I love Jesus, and He loves me. I’m doing my best to help his cause and spread the word and I don’t think he cares who we are attracted to/what gender we are
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slin
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5 days, 15 hours ago by slin
@Yelena09 definitely agree that a lot of people feel safer coming out during these recent years. Unfortunately now under this new adminsitration, it is quite obvious they don't tolerate or accept people in the community, proven with anti-trans legislation and pride flags being banned in certain places. I think many people who come out to non religious folks definitely find more acceptance compared to those coming out to religious people. Many religious people "tolerate" or even "accept" the LGBTQ community until its someone they know personally like their children. I am not out to people around me, especially Christians around me who, *mostly* are homophobic. They say they don't approve of out "lifestyle", yet it doesn't even affect them. LGBTQ couples are no different than same-sex couples, yet they face so many hardships and even death threats. There are so many of LGBTQ people who have been killed because of who they identify or who they love which is so ridiculous. How can people just see this and agree they deserve it based on their sexuality or gender identity. Many conservtives have been saying they don't want the gay agenda being pushed on kids, yet I have never seen a gay person trying to "make" someone straight. Its ironic to say such an absurd thing since everyone knows straight people have been trying to fix us with conversion camps which lead to high suicide rates. One day I fear even basic things for our community will be take away like marriage equality. We are supposed to be making the world a better and more equal place, yet sometimes it feels like we are going backward. Its sad but sometimes I ask myself if this person would even want to associate or be my friend if they knew I was gay. Please put yourselves in others shoes and have some empathy.
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Yelena09
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5 days, 13 hours ago by Yelena09
@slin it’s a scary thing to think about. We really haven’t progressed that much as a society. In fact, we’re going backwards. Please, everyone who “tolerates”, but doesn’t accept: lgbtq people aren’t a bad community. We are still beings seeking acceptance like the rest of you. It’s not hard to give the bare minimum of acceptance and kindness. Yes, there are bad people, and there are bad lgbtq people, but that doesn’t make the whole society, so please don’t treat all of us as if we are inappropriate or perverted because most of us aren’t. @slin is a great friend of mine and a great person. People are still beings just like the rest of you.
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slin
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5 days, 13 hours ago by slin
@Yelena09 Exactly, there are bad people everywhere throughout all different communities, but there are some of the kindest and most understanding LGBTQ people out there. If you have ever had a bad experience, it doesn't reflect the community as a whole. We all crave love and kindness, yet the people we get hurt by the most are those closest to us. If you are ever discriminating against someone because they are LGBTQ, ask yourself if they did anything to you or if you are just being prejudice. I treat everyone with respect and don't think less of them because of their religion, gender, sexuality, or ethnicity. Its so hard for me to understand why we can't just all get along with each other. I am open to discuss with anyone who respects and wants to genuinely learn more about our community. (@yYelena09 I appreciate you sm, thanks for being here!)
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Yelena09
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5 days, 13 hours ago by Yelena09
@slin I appreciate you too! You’re kinda like a big sister tbh and it’s AWESOME. I’ll try to be more active on here. I’ll always try to help and listen as best I can (:
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slin
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5 days, 13 hours ago by slin
@Yelena09 Aww, thank you! I know you are busy sometimes so don't worry, I'm always here if you need me! It's really great to have some friends who understand and get me! /)/)( . .) ( づ♡ |
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Dis_abled
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5 days, 12 hours ago by Dis_abled
@BobTheCat_ My question is why would you even be hating on LGBTQ people in the first place? Not trying to be rude, it's just that we all pick our gender, what's so bad about that? The one thing we can't pick is out sex. And sex only determines what ind of body your born with and what x and y chromosomes you have. We can't decide that, but we do get to decide gender and pronouns. It's all down to the personal experience of feeling gender queer than being cis. And yeah, it can be hard to understand but there isn't any reason for hate on anything LGBTQ or pronouns. We all are made differently and we are who we are, diversity makes the world unique and a lot of LGBTQ people I meet end up being some of the most amazing, kindest people I've ever met. Again, not trying to hate but I don't see how you can disagree and not hate? Can you just leave us alone? Just because we're different doesn't mean it's wrong. Have a good day. ❤️ |
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slin
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5 days, 12 hours ago by slin
@Dis_abled 100% agree, and I really don't understand why people get so worked up over this when it doesn't personally affect you. We aren't forcing you to turn gay or trans, etc., but there are so many Americans out there trying to fix us with conversion therapy and "praying the gay away" Its not a phase, and we aren't confused or brainwashed. It's so sad to see people just happily existing and living their life, while you shake your head in disgust. We're stronger together versus being divided. It always seems like an ultimatum nowadays, being Christian or queer. Why can't I be both? Please stop trying to fix us or expressing your disapproval in public. If you don't approve of our "lifestyles", please don't say anything rude directly to us. It's common courtesy and everyone is deserving of love. We are here, and we're not leaving.
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Dis_abled
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5 days, 11 hours ago by Dis_abled
@slinI agree! LGBTQ has been around for years and it isn't going away, if you don't agree don't say anything. I hear a lot of people say "Americas a free country" Then well shoot, if it's a free country I should be able to wear all the LGBTQ clothing I want and proudly express who I am, right? Sadly not. Instead, I get harassed for my existence and I'm told over and over that "I'm a girl" Well, I'm not. Most of the time anyway- Got sidetracked there but I fully agree with you ❤️ |
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slin
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5 days, 11 hours ago by slin
@Dis_abled yeah its so disheartening to see peoples pride flags being stolen and burned, while MAGA's are allowed to hang their flag up without a problem. Me wearing a pride shirt could put my life in danger, which is so screwed up to me. Even participating in rallies and parades are dangerous because violence from the police and opposing sides will target you. To anyone reading this, you are valid and loved ❤️
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