I'm not Catholic -- despite the best efforts of those around me in the stands that morning -- but I am a believer. To some this admission makes me naive, to others a kindred spirit, and for those who do not think you can be openly gay and a Christian, I am lost. I'll explain. One of the most difficult aspects for an LGBT person coming out of the closet is feeling the need to leave the church and their faith behind. One of the most liberating moments is the day they realize they don't have to.
That God is too big for small minds. That the Lord our God is with us wherever we go. So yeah, when I turned my back on God I was lost. When I learned he never turned his back on me, I was found. And it seems as if I am not alone. According to a Pew study in , 42 percent of LGBT Americans identified as Christian, and today it's up to 48 percent of that number 17 percent are Catholic in case his Holiness was wondering.
That increase coincides with the election of the people's pope, who hasn't changed the church's doctrine but has changed its tone. Not saying one caused the other but it's worth noting that in his historic 3,word address to a joint session of Congress , the pope used most of them talking about the poor and none condemning gays.
So to those people of faith who have a problem with LGBT Americans I say the same Constitution that protects your freedom of religious expression protects the religious expression of everyone else. Even when I would tell myself to pay closer attention, I still was having a hard time finding Rose's. In fact, I became so frustrated I actually had to take out my GPS to find the restaurant I've been driving to since the '90s.
But once I finally got my bearings, parked and started walking down the street toward the restaurant -- scratching my head and mumbling to myself -- I saw God.
I'm not sure why -- it's not like I was ducking him and I don't think he was avoiding me -- it just hadn't worked out until that day. The day I got lost trying to get to a place I always go. That was about the extent of our exchange -- he was being pulled by his young kids and I was terribly late for dinner. Now to some, me aimlessly driving around trying to find Rose's and running into Rob is no more than a coincidence. That may come across as a bit self-righteous, which I can completely understand.
After all, even if there is a higher power many refer to as God, why would God bother to have me run into Rob? Why doesn't God, I don't know, spend that time curing cancer instead? One of the biggest problems with religion in general, and evangelical Christianity in particular, is the claim of having definitive answers about an infinite being. But true faith does not require us to have all of the answers. Faith, as it relates to spirituality, isn't knowing something others don't know -- we call that a secret -- but rather belief in something that can't be empirically proven or disproven.
In other words, to truly be a person of faith one must accept the fact there is no tangible evidence there is a God. If such evidence existed, we wouldn't need faith. And on the flip side, atheists cannot prove without a shadow of a doubt there is no God. So while I can't prove God intended for me to run into Rob on the street that day, the skeptic cannot prove that some form of intelligence -- God, if you will -- did not. I think the criticism of Broussard is completely unwarranted.
I want to clarify Broussard did not volunteer these remarks. Not that he knows or even cares what I think but this is a conversation that needs to happen and he skillfully defended the faith in a forum that many would falter in, and it was a beautiful thing.
The Bible does NOT single-out homosexuality as the worst sin, nor does it permit mistreatment of homosexuals and I am not in anyway advocating either of those things here.
The Bible does, however, hold forth a stringent standard of sexual morality that we all fall short of e.
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