Jesus loves Gays.

I write this because the oldest gay rights campaigner George Montague,

 died at the age of 98. God rest his soul.

This man was convicted of indecency in the 1970’s for loving another man in the way that was most natural to him he was told he was sinful. Yet also during the 1970’s people were taking children away from single mothers who wanted them, and that was actually unnatural and sinful, lest we forget.

My grandfather used to say “the devil makes work for idle hands” and prosecuting a man for loving his life partner seems like the height of idleness. It shows a society with nothing better to do than hate.

 But lets’ take the Bible literally for a second.

God created the world, in 6 periods of time (not actual days that is a common misinterpretation of the Hebrew) he saw it and it was good.

So God said that every human being was good. No caveats. We all get an equal shot at heaven.

So why, pray tell is there an actual industry within the established church telling God’s creation that they are going to hell? For loving in exactly the way that the same God has commanded them to love?

I have a few open questions to these people. Are you so arrogant that you think you are right and that you think that God has made a mistake by creating 10% of the global population that identify as LGBTQ+? The omnipotent, omniscient All- Mighty made a mistake with 10% of the globe?

I have news for you. I’m an accountant and in my industry we talk about materiality. If something is up to 2% wrong and it causes someone to make a different decision, it is wrong and we throw the whole thing out. So if God made a mistake with creating the LGBTQ+ community, then he’d have destroyed the entire world a long time ago.

The church’s preoccupation with sex has long been heralded as its destruction. As a woman, being told that your body is sinful (technically we’re not meant to have sex 1 week either side of our periods) (least followed law of all time.) You should stop tempting men with makeup and immodest dress and that you are responsible for the degradation of society due to pre-martial sex. All this is quite draining. I’m now immune to the “fire and brimstone” threats of eternal damnation. Talk to me about love.

A Bible verse I have held most dear which first came to me in primary school was “John 10:10” Jesus said “I came that you have life, and life in all its fullness.” And that is unique to you. I remember walking through Soho during 2019 Pride (I’d gone to the theatre that day) and seeing a man wearing the best pair of heels I’d seen in my life. I’m not even a “shoe girl” but these shoes were cinderella’ esque.  And he had the legs for them. He was wearing a sparkly blue crop top and matching booty shorts, I stopped him to compliment him about the shoes and then I noticed the scars… on his thighs where no one would usually see except for that day. This poor man had self harmed. Most likely because he was being rejected for who he was. And in that moment, I prayed for that man. I didn’t tell him, I didn’t know him but I prayed for him. I prayed for peace, love and self-acceptance.  I prayed for better days in the future. It hurt me deeply because those days I had horrendous mental health and had thought of doing what he had actually done. It hurt me that prejudice could lead a perfectly healthy man to hurt himself to relive the pain he was feeling. I thought to myself no way that the same God that I serve would want him to feel any less of a human being due to who he is. In fact I know that the God that I serve shed tears every time that man cut himself, for he is God’s creation and special to him.

I never found the specific pair of shoes that he wore on the website he gave me. Which was good because I wasn’t rich back then and those shoes started at £400…

When I was in my late 20’s I went to a Baptist church, it was run by a man my age who was married and had a young son.  He was a fantastic preacher and did lots to serve the local community, he was also active in the political scene. He then came out as gay and sought to divorce his wife (amicably) the church essentially threw him out, giving a BS reason of “they didn’t like the way he spoke to them” which I argued was a HR issue that should be brought up separately if valid, you don’t use it to kick a man when he’s most vulnerable. But I was only informed of their decision after the fact as I was not a member at the time. I never did take up membership of that church.

My science hero Alan Turing. It’s hard to comprehend the cruelty that was extracted on that man for simply being. We wasted incredible talent for the sake of societal prejudice that was espoused by the church and an unpopular opinion I hold is that if we’d lost the war for it I’d have said that was God’s punishment for stupidity.

The Bible is a book written for its time and for all of time. And you need to separate the 2. Of course, it talks about “Slaves obey your masters” and how women should be modest otherwise you stone them to death, that was the author’s writing for their time. Otherwise, no one would read it to pass it down or even get to the good stuff like how much God loves each of us and how he wants us to live up to our fullest potential that he gave us.

One of the most important things in the Bible isn’t what is said, it is what is not said. At no point when God is talking about his love for humanity does he say “but not the non believers, the LGBTQ+ community and the Irish.”  There is no caveats, only love. God isn’t happy with prejudice. Remember that the same loving God who created you, created your enemies and deemed them as good as you, so try and see the good in them.

If you cannot see good in another person then please settle for minding your own business and try not to make life difficult for them.

Elizabeth the first once said, “I will not make windows into men’s souls.”  Words to live by.

Grace and Courage.

Annetta Mother-Smith.