Click Here!!
^^^^^^^^^^
Life was just explained right there.
Amazing.
Actually found something to blog about today.
And as the title implies, I still don't know what just happened.
Here's a little back story.
Last week Thursday, I get a random text message from a girl I've never met before.
Her name is Jesse.
Apparently one of my friends gave her my number, so she decided to text me (Still trying to figure out who...)
For kicks and giggles.
Well she turns out to be completely awesome.
She was funny, fun to talk to, pretty chill, and goes to UNC.
So all is well. We talk almost every day since last Thursday, n such.
About fun stuffs.
Then tonight got a little weird.
We started about religious things, since I go to a Christian School. She's a Christian (?) from what I could tell, just real subtle about it. She didn't go to church, didn't actively express her faith. Which isn't bad, some may disagree but I viewed myself sorta the same way.
So I was chill about it.
Then we got onto the topic of gay marriage/rights.
She gave her opinion on it:
"I think everyone deserves someone that they can love, no matter the gender."
I knew she was gonna say something of that ilk, I was more expecting the phrase: "they have a right" which I was kinda prepared to talk about. But she made a vague, generic comment that I agree with.
So I give my opinion on it:
"I think homosexuality is a sin, I don't support gay rights. And I do not think its natural (I.E species in nature don't generally tend to try and mate with the same gender)." I didn't mean the last part to be discriminatory at ALL. I just meant that in nature we don't see animals be homosexual normally.
Could I have left that out? Yes, I wish I did. My thoughts overran my thumbs while typing the text.
****DISCLAIMER****
I have since been proven wrong with the above statement. Apparently, there are 1,500 species that are have homosexual individuals. Not sure why, it sparked my curiosity.
Time for research! Gotta figure out why...
But I'm just going to make a statement: Just because it's present in nature, does not make it right.
******
I also included that I viewed homosexuality as a choice.
And then she told me she was gay.
Total curveball. Got offended on the natural, and the choice part of my opinion, I don't blame her. I wish I worded it differently from what I did.
Or maybe that thought is something I only think....
Anyway.
She exploded. Called me out, cussed me out, and was generically pissed off at me.
She yelled at me for four ideas that she had.
1) She was born gay.
2) She said that I said she was going to hell (which I didn't).
3) God loves me just as much as he loves you.
4) I am no different or any less of a person than you.
That threw me off. All I said was that homosexuality was a sin, and she fires back with those.
And I told her that "we are all sinners, I never condemned you at all, and of course God loves you. I never said anything otherwise."
So I tell her that and she responds, again, with crazy ideas that had nothing to do with what I said.
1) You are just like all the other gay haters (paraphrased).
2) You have no right to judge me.
3) You are a hypocrite.
So she starts stereotyping me with all of the other violent people who don't support gay rights.
And trust me, the only bad thing I said was that homosexuality was a sin. And she completely takes the conversation off road, and makes me the bad guy.
I reply by saying, "I'm not judging you, I'm not condemning you, I'm not sending you to hell. God still loves you, I never said he didn't. I never said you are second rate to me or that I am better than you in any way, shape, or form. We're all human. We all sin. I know I don't have the right to judge you."
Her response?
1) It's not a choice.
2) Me and my friends all support gay rights, so you can't just say we are wrong.
3) I'm a close minded prick.
Yes. I too am trying to figure out why she kept trying to change the subject, and make me the back guy. She back tracked and said things that had nothing to do with what I said.
So I reply by saying, "Wait, so because you and your friends support, therefore its (homosexuality) right and I'm wrong? You asked for my opinion, I gave it. If you want to hate me for it, go ahead. I'm not discriminating you at all."
***************
Wondering why I'm giving you her quotes in bullet form, but mine aren't?
So am I.
For the sake of the pattern, I'm going to continue.
But I am 100% honest with those bullet points, I'm not trying to make myself seem better or anything.
That's how she said it, but she worded it. A lot.
***************
Ok.
So I'm trying to be straight ( no pun intended) with her, and she gives me sorta round about, sketch responses, aimed to attack me.
And she responds like this:
1) Yes, me and my friends are right. (Pretty much, "me and my friends support gay rights, therefore its right. Logical fallacy FTW!)
2) I'm right, you're wrong.
3) You are discriminating/judging me, you just won't admit it. If you weren't judging, you wouldn't care if I was gay or not.
I said "that's a total logical fallacy, I don't follow your logic. Ok then we have two different definitions for those words. Based on yours, then I judge/discriminate EVERY single person that I meet."
So I wanna give my definitions of judging and discrimination.
Judging: The act of looking at someone, and feeling a sense of superiority or of better worth.
Discrimination: The act of intentionally bringing people down, sometimes violently, and treating them worse than people of other ethnic groups.
I judged her. But I did it mentally, I don't feel that ANYTHING I said indicated that.
Yes, I hate that I do that. I'm struggling to try and stop, I'm working on it.
So.
With that being said, I kinda felt I was handling the conversation well.
But who knows, I'm probably doing it wrong.
So, as a response I get this:
1) You don't want to understand us.
2) You are an ignorant prick.
3) I take pride in being gay***
***That confused me.
I left it out, but early in the conversation, she said something I feel is contradictory.
She said, direct quotes, "I would never choose to be gay."
And later she tells me, in quotes, "I've been gay my whole f****** life, and I would never want to change that."
?
So, pretty much, "I would never want to be gay, but since I am, I don't want to change."
I was gonna point this out to her, but at this point she is obviously pissed off at me, and probably not my friend anymore. So I kept it to myself, pondering it.
And at this point, I'm completely confused.
So, I try and get back the main point, because she has a distorted view on my opinion on homosexuality.
So I said, "There's a ton of things I will never understand. And honestly, being snapped at and yelled at isn't going to make me want to. I think its a sin. That's my view. I don't hate you or homosexuals."
Her response actually followed what I said.
She asked, "if you really believe in God, how can you say love is a sin?"
My first thought was that she has a flawed view on love/homosexuality/what God says about love and what I said. I never said love is a sin. I said homosexuality was. They are different.
So I replied to her, saying "I believe that the Bible clearly states that homosexuality is a sin, and I can give you verses to back me up."
What she said back:
1) HA!
2) I do know the Bible. It says nothing about homosexuality.
3) You're a f***** hypocrite for saying that.
That pretty much confirmed it for me. She had a flawed basic understanding of the Bible, and what it teaches. Saying it does not talk about homosexuality is completely false. I found tons of verses talking about it, all classifying it as a sin.
1 Corinthians 6: 9-10
Leviticus 18: 22
Leviticus 20: 13
Just to name a few.
So I told her that she didn't actually study the Bible if she says that it does not talk about homosexuality. And I said that the idea that homosexuality is a sin, is completely Biblical.
The conversation goes on, and she tries to conclude her thoughts.
1) I don't care what you think, you're too close minded and ignorant.
2) It's not a choice, and its a not a sin. God made me this way for a reason.
3) Its funny to me how much of a hypocrite you are.
So I asked how I was being ignorant, and a hypocrite, and said that she was as close minded on my views as I was on hers (I was getting kinda irritated) and that every living soul on this Earth is a hypocrite.
And then she goes on to try and guilt trip me by saying things like:
"You don't understand. You have no idea what it's like. You have no idea what I've been through. Shut up, you're just trying to force your opinion down my throat, over something that doesn't concern you."
I never heard back from her.
That was my first real conversation/argument with someone over the gay rights issue.
Maybe someone from the outside of this can get an unbiased view on this conversation, cause I'm still confused over it.
The biggest thing I noticed was her fundamental distorted views on the Christian faith, what the Bible says, what God says, and what I said.
Simply put, the Bible claims that homosexuality is a sin. There's no way around that. She claimed it didn't. It does.
She stereotyped me. She instantly categorized me with all the other gay haters. And then she treated me as such. Refuting things I never said, then attacking me towards the end.
Its sad. I couldn't converse with her from all the crap she had gotten from other people. Which bugs me. Because then she views people who don't support gay rights negatively.
I'm going to give a brief summary of my view on gay rights/marriage.
First off, its a sin. That is Biblical. And I will treat it as such.
Love the person, hate the sin.
I tried to give that vibe to Jesse, but she never got it.
And I see marriage as the permanent union of one man and one woman, as ordered and given to us by God. I think that gay marriage violates that. Marriage is a sacred union of a man and a women, not a man and man, and not a woman and a woman.
I do not think that we as humans have any right to change what God has given to us.
That's my view on it. I in no way support gay rights.
To me, its just as bad as any other sin.
I kinda want to touch base with some of the things she said to defend her position.
"It's not a choice, God made me this way."
This is tricky. I never really believed that you were born gay. That never made sense to me.
Evolutionary speaking, how does that work? If the norm is to mate with the opposite sex, what does mating with the same sex imply? That would mean that something in your brain is making you think that way. Genetic makeup? Science has not found a "gay gene", so I don't think that's it. But maybe its a rearrangement of nucleiotide base pairs that is causing that. The random mutation that also supposedly drives evolution. Assuming that's all true, natural selection would have acted on it already, so I don't think its a gene, or anything wrong with the genetic makeup of your DNA. So I don't think you're born gay.
There have been concrete scientific studies that show some sort of childhood experience will lead to it.
Which says to me most people aren't born gay, something dramatic happened in their early stages of their development that could have caused that.
This study also showed the percentages of people who changed sexual orientation, whether from gay to straight or vice versa. So I think its a choice to be gay.
I also view that she used this as an excuse. "Well, God made me this way, so it must be OK."
So can murderers say that now? "I was born a murderer! God made me this way!"
No. We are all sinners. Saying God made you gay is the same as saying God me a rapist, therefore rape is OK.
It doens't work like that! If that was a legit excuse, people could get away with anything. It always bugged me when she said that. I was very tempted to ask if it was OK to kill people if I said I was born a murderer.
And EVEN IF the above statement was true, that doesn't make it
right.
Its late.
I've been writing for an hour now.
I just wanted to say that the conversation was very interesting, made me think.
It challenged me. And although she felt like I was degrading her, I wasn't.
I'm just upset I lost a friend over it....
Quote: "Whatever doesn't kill you will only make you stronger."
Ian Quote Of The Day: "Not unless it paralyzes you from the neck down."
