The holidays and why I hate religion

A few years ago I would have said, "Merry Christmas," but it seems as though the amount of time I spent in Catholic schools has made me less and less religious.  I was quite a fervent believer when I was a child, but not so much now.  I've realized how much devastation, sadness, and mayhem religion causes throughout the world, even the allegedly less-militant religions like Christianity.

I can't begin to tell you how many times I have suffered under the judgement of someone who called themselves a Christian.  Someone who, on one hand preaches the tenets of Jesus – who himself said, "judge not, lest ye be judged" – but on the other hand slathers everyone around them with the label "sinner" or "heathen".

One of the first people I came out to was my best friend from middle school – we'll call him Charlie.  Charlie and I had known each other since the sixth grade, even though we only went to the same school for one year.  We had so many things in common – from our interests to our humor, to even how we approached things like school (not very well back then, but at least we had that in common).  Despite not being at the same school after sixth grade, we kept in touch.  He lived on the other side of LA – about a forty minute drive – but maybe once every couple of months we'd get together and spend a weekend at each others' houses.  We'd stay up all night and play games, talk about Dungeons & Dragons, and do other nerdy things.  Outside of those few weekends we'd spend hanging out, we'd keep in touch over the Internet on AIM or ICQ.

When I finally learned how to drive, I'd take more frequent trips up to see him, and he'd do the same when he got his license.  We knew each other so well, and had such a connection, that I couldn't help but believe he knew my secret.  I had never had a girlfriend (well, I had one, but she wasn't really a "girlfriend", per se), I never talked about girls, and when I would write my stories, I would never include them.  I figured all of this would amount to some evidence that made him realize that I was gay, and that he wasn't saying anything, or asking anything, because he respected my privacy.

Interestingly, he was always a bit girly himself.  I thought for a bit, when I was younger, that he might be gay, but I immediately dismissed it as ridiculous because he talked about girls all the time, and he also included them in his stories all the time.  He drew them, had them as wallpapers, and all sorts of things.  Anime girls (he's Asian, so I guess that's not a surprise, necessarily), but girls nonetheless.  Some time after I came out to him, he confided in me that, for a while, he had been struggling with his own secret: gender identity.  He identified more with being a female tomboy, who was a lesbian, than being a male who liked women.  He later "got over that phase", and while I am sure he still has those feelings, he's not really going to address them any more than he did.  He did tell me some other things about his struggles during his high school years, but out of respect for him, I won't share them, even here, where no one in the world would ever find out his identity.

Stepping backward a bit, when I finally was comfortable with myself enough to come out to someone, I felt who would be a better choice than him?  He knew me better than anyone had ever known me before, and I felt I owed him a bit of honesty.

So one balmy Saturday night, after we had gone to get some food from the only Carl's Jr open after midnight in his city, I told him.

"I've known I've been gay since I was really young," I said simply.  I worked it into the conversation so the segue made sense.  I think it was so smooth that he didn't immediately react.

"Wait, what?" he said.  "You're gay?"

I nodded.  "I'm sure you've already figured that out, all these years," I said.  My heart was pounding, and I was searching his face for any any semblance of information – that little blip that would betray his thinking.  There was nothing but surprise.

"Wow," he said.  "No, I had no idea."

We talked for a bit longer.  He seemed comfortable albeit a bit caught off-guard.  I went home thinking, it wasn't so bad.  It wasn't good, in the sense that he was totally 100% okay with it, but it wasn't bad.

When we next met up, we got into a discussion again, this time about religion.  I knew he was religious – that a few years previously, he'd taken after his mom and joined a church, and started going to bible study and the like – but I didn't know to what extent.  He never really talked about his faith, and never really showed it outside of praying before meals.  Inevitably, he segued over to how religion views homosexuality.  He says, "God considers it a sin."

I shot back, "Does he?"

He seemed pretty sure of himself.  I explained.

"Look," I said.  "The bible talks about homosexuality once in the Old Testament.  It's along the same lines as how it talks about eating shellfish, or dealing with a rebellious son: all of them are 'abominations' and require one to be put to death."

He seemed interested so I continued.  "Basically, all those other laws are not applicable, so why is this one?  Why did we choose to listen to this law and not the others?  In the New Testament it's not even mentioned by Jesus, but by Paul, who also said that women are subservient to men, and a bunch of other things we don't consider valid today.  So again, why concentrate on this particular one, and not the rest?"

He shrugged.  "I don't know," he said.  "But my Pastor says that God is pretty clear on this."

"Maybe you should ask him," I said.  "I think you should get his take on why we take this law so seriously and not the other laws that we consider archaic."

He shook his head, "I don't really want to."

"Why not?  There's value in asking questions about your teachings.  It's how you learn more."

"Like I said, I don't really want to," he replied.  "It's okay – we all sin.  Me, you – everyone."

"It's not a sin–" I said, getting angry.  I felt I was going to cry.

"I can't look at it any other way."

So there it was.  He was calling me a sinner, and not even taking to heart what I said about the bible – the book that I studied for over a decade in my years growing up with Catholic school.  I had read it from cover to cover – literally – and have critically analyzed its pages over the years.  I doubt he could say the same, but yet here we were.  And perhaps most angering, he didn't even want to ask his pastor about it.  All he said was, "I don't really want to," – case closed.

I was very hurt, disappointed, and disillusioned – but most of all, I was angry.  I wasn't angry at him (well, maybe a little bit, for his willful ignorance), but angry at religion in general: it took away my best friend's support from me, and put it in the hands of his peers, who gladly sat around judging everyone who came past, but never once looking at themselves.

I came to the conclusion a while later that one of the primary requirements of religion was to feel guilt.  This guilt doesn't have to have a source: you should just feel guilty for living (after all, original sin is your fault).  I've heard and read about how terribly this guilt affects peoples' daily lives; how they have sleepless nights thinking about death and about going to hell, and how they can't wait to atone for their sins, only to be cast back to the guilty because of something they did or thought they did.  It's a never-ending cycle.  In the meantime they see us: the "sinners" and the "heathens", going about our daily lives, free of this great cloud of guilt which surrounds their every waking (and dreaming) moment, and they are disgusted.  So they judge, and they cast their judgement upon us, so that we may "come to the light," AKA feel guilty like they are.  It's a two-birds-one-stone deal: their jealousy towards us is gone, and now we are just as miserable as they are.  And you know what they say about misery loving company.

But very rarely is a religious person able to "save" a heathen like us rabid homosexuals from the fires of hell, so they attempt to legislate morality instead, so even though we don't feel this deep, shameful guilt like they do, we can't be happy with our lives anyway, because we lack the fundamental rights that they do.

This is why they are so scared of us getting equal treatment.  It's not because they feel that we're going to "ruin America" (although, they probably talked themselves into believing that); it's because if they can't lord themselves over us using our basic human rights anymore, then they lose all control over us, and their ability to feel schadenfreude at-will, and consequently feel better about themselves (and vastly superior), even if for a faint moment.

That's why I hate religion, and why the holidays are close behind.