Religion and sexuality. These two essences of human nature have conflicted for centuries, as people attempt to define what is culturally and socially acceptable for communities, and most often, congregations.
At the Trinity Lutheran Church in St. Petersburg, a man found his place where his two passions could co-exist: his passion for Christianity and his self, his sexuality.
Rev. Paul Gibson was welcomed into a congregation that cared more about his preaching and his ability to work with his flock more than his sexuality. Some members of the church left, a Tampa Bay Times article wrote, but many more had joined.
It’s almost refreshing to see religion be what we are told it is.
I stepped away from religion in high school after attending a Lutheran school for eight years. I didn’t understand how a religious group could instruct peace and love and acceptance while condemning the beliefs of other religious groups or sexualities. Gender was strict and so were the rules that kept us away from the fire and brimstone. Divorce? Another taboo, unless the parents were remarried.
To think that we could hurt each other with this gospel love was painful to me. I didn’t want to be a part of that world where Christians feared Muslims. I didn’t want to watch as loved ones had to grapple with not only becoming the people they never realized they were, but fought with their families. Friends were stigmatized for being gay, and all because God said it was a sin. We’re taught to love one another, but that’s not even close to what’s practiced.
Why is being a person a sin? Why could merely existing, being yourself, be so horrendous that families disown their children? How could you love a god more than you love your family?
I’m agnostic. This means that I acknowledge that there is some sort of deity or entity that created life, but I’m just not sure if it was Allah or Jesus or Vishnu or anyone in specific. I can’t claim belief or disbelief in god. I can’t be certain of a god, but I can be certain that I love people.
I embraced this thought pattern after reading about centuries of civilizations slaughtering each other over religion and families killing their children because they are transgender.
For someone like me, religion shouldn’t strip us of our humanity. It should bring us closer to one another, closer to a mutual understanding of what it means to exist. The world is beautiful. Blood and pain mar that image, to the point in which we forget we are slaughtering our brothers and torturing our daughters. We do these things so often in the name of a god.
What kind of god would want us to hurt each other like this?
I don’t love a specific god. I love my asexual, bi-romantic cousin. I love my transgender friends. I love my straight, remarried parents. I love my Jewish and Muslim best friends. I love coexistence. I love to love.
It’s moments like these, when a gay pastor is loved by his congregation, that makes religion seems safe again. Maybe love can fill congregations and streets outside the walls of religious institutions, too.
