Coming Out to the Church

Finally settled on a place to broadcast the story of a young guy in love with Jesus... who has to come out as gay to the Church, those he dearly loves, and making this Christian thing work in a way that makes Jesus famous.

[highreevecain-deactivated202502]

[jof]

What happened to the Iraqi people is unspeakable.

[comingouttothechurch]

I don’t often reblog things, but this is super cool.

[vijara]

lately i’ve been replacing my “i’m sorry”s with “thank you”s, like instead of “sorry i’m late” i’ll say “thanks for waiting for me”, or instead of “sorry for being such a mess” i’ll say “thank you for loving me and caring about me unconditionally” and it’s not only shifted the way i think and feel about myself but also improved my relationships with others who now get to receive my gratitude instead of my negativity

[etereas]

This is some 2017 mood

[comingouttothechurch]

This is actually some pretty amazing advice and deserves a reblog.  There are many cases where apologies are more appropriate... but I think even then, saying both “I’m sorry __. Thanks for ___.” in the same breath is a super valuable way to communicate both respect and gratitude.

The original writer does remind us that our words to others have a powerful effect on the way we view ourselves, and I can’t agree with that more. <3

[anexperimentallife]

So if the Democrats take the Senate, Bernie Sanders becomes head of the Senate Budget Committee? Which would make him the fourth most powerful individual in the United States.

Imagine how much we could get done with a Sanders-led Senate Budget Committee under a Democratic president who has already been forced to adopt most of his domestic policy in exchange for his endorsement.

If you really want to see the change we got behind Bernie for, get Clinton into the White House, and get Democrats into the House and Senate.

(Also keep in mind that this next president gets to decide what’s constitutional and unconstitutional for the next 30-50 years, as they will most likely get to appoint at least four Supreme Court Justices.)

[fadeintocase]

Start telling people this. People have to know the practicality of their votes.

[uncle-whisky-deactivated2018081]

HOLY CANNOLI I NEVER THOUGHT OF THAT

[elodieunderglass]

Women’s right to abortion? Do you know which president created that? NO YOU DO NOT. Because it wasn’t a FUCKING president, it was Roe vs Wade. That is a Supreme Court Decision and has nothing to do with the standing president. Do you know what president was in charge during that term? 

People of color’s right to equal educational access? Which president decided that should happen? DING DING DING, that wasn’t a president, it was Brown Vs Board of Education. That’s a Supreme Court Decision that changed the nation, in part because it overruled the previous Supreme Court Decision that denied black people equal access to rights. Do you know what president was in charge in that term? Does it even matter?

Same-sex marriage? Supreme Court.

Interracial marriage? Supreme Court.

Miranda rights? The thing that police officers have to say to you, and which protects some of the rights of the arrested person? That’s a Supreme Court ruling.

The decision that Bush won the 2000 election? That was the Supreme Court case Bush v. Gore.

The Supreme Court is literally a time bomb that is ready to explode and change the country, and people are pissing around whining about whether Hillary is too bitchy and how maybe Uncle Bernie will descend on a fairy cloud and give them pancakes.

IT DOESN’T MATTER IF YOU HAVE TO SPEND THE NEXT FOUR YEARS OF YOUR TINY PISSANT LIFE UNDER THE MOST BASIC BITCH IN BITCHDOWN. THE NEXT FOUR YEARS OF YOUR PISSANT LIFE ARE HISTORICALLY MEANINGLESS.

HISTORY DOESN’T GIVE A SHIT IF YOU THROW YOUR TOYS OUT OF THE PRAM BECAUSE YOU’RE 24 AND ANGSTY. THAT CHANGES NOTHING BECAUSE CLEARLY YOU DON’T EVEN KNOW WHAT THE SUPREME COURT IS, AND ARE THUS  NOT RESPONSIBLE ENOUGH TO MAKE POLITICAL DECISIONS, LET ALONE HOST A WELL-ATTENDED REVOLUTION.

RUTH BADER GINSBURG IS DROPPING IN HER FUCKING TRACES TO SAVE YOUR UNGRATEFUL FUCKING SKINS AND NOT ONE OF YOU UNGRATEFUL CHILDREN KNOWS HER FACE.

Want more reproductive rights? BERNIE CAN’T HELP YOU AND HE NEVER COULD. A REVOLUTION WON’T SAVE YOU. THAT’S A SUPREME COURT PROBLEM.

Want more of literally anything relating to social justice? PRESIDENTS CAN’T DO SHIT FOR YOU. GO AHEAD, TRY TO NAME THE MECHANISM BY WHICH THEY CAN DO SHIT FOR YOU. ARE THEY GOING TO ~*~WRITE A BILL~*~ ABOUT BEING NICE TO PEOPLE? NO, THAT’S THE SUPREME COURT.

Want different regulations on immigration? SUPREME COURT. IF THE SUPREME COURT DECIDES THAT OUR CURRENT SYSTEM OF IMMIGRATION IS “UNCONSTITUTIONAL,” IT WILL CHANGE. OTHERWISE, HEAVEN AND EARTH WON’T MOVE IT.

Want - SUPREME COURT. IT’S THE SUPREME COURT. THAT’S WHERE THESE DECISIONS GET MADE.

The President of the United States of American has no actual power to give everyone fairy pancakes and legal marijuana because they are the leader of a democracy, and the built-in nature of democracy says that on any given issue, half the people in the democracy are working against POTUS. We deliberately set POTUS up to be hamstrung by the Congress and the Senate, and they must ALWAYS abide by the Constitution as defined by the Supreme Court. We didn’t want a nation of 320 million people to be led to slaughter by the whims of a random monarch, so we did this on purpose.

Now, if you look at your shiny POTUS trading card, you can see that despite having no Attack or Movement points, they still have two very interesting powers: 

they can press the Big Red Button (i.e. as Commander in Chief, they can dispatch military troops by themselves, without waiting for Congressional approval to declare war)

They appoint the Justices of the Supreme Court.

Everyone who lives in America abides by the Supreme Court’s decisions, and the great groundshaking social changes of America were decisions made by the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court is a panel of the most brilliant lawmakers in the land, appointed by the President alone, and answerable only to themselves. IT IS A POSITION FOR LIFE, YOU FOOLS, YOU RUBES. The United States is a nation ruled by a Constitution and that Constitution lives, breathes and governs the lives of Americans through the interpretation of the Supreme Court.

If you want to change the nation - well, three of the Supreme Court Justices are over the age of 77. It’s a position for life, and they’re all hanging on, but how many 77-year-olds do you know who are in perfect health and sharpness? Two of them are Clinton appointees, and one is a Reagan appointee. Ginsburg, the eldest, is 83 (appointed by Bill Clinton in 1993). In her 24 years on the SCOTUS, she’s shaped everything from LGBT+ rights, to environmental policy, to the role of women. She’s interpreted, enforced and defended the Constitution. And for years, all of the parties represented in the SCOTUS have been licking their lips over her, because they assume she’ll die in the next 4 years, allowing the next President to plant a political successor that will shape the nation for generations. She could bloody well last (and she intends to - does anyone else remember how she POWERED THROUGH COLON CANCER in 99? jesus FUCK) but instead of pinning your hopes for the future directions of the nation on an elderly woman fighting your corner out of sheer cussedness, YOU COULD ALSO VOTE FOR A PRESIDENT WHO COULD FIND HER A GOOD SUCCESSOR. 

The careful balance of political parties embodied in the current SCOTUS can just about absorb one replacement without tipping the country into chaos… and there is a high likelihood of three replacements in the next 4-8 years. Three Trump-nominated SCOTUS Justices, to replace the sheer fighting ferocity of Ginsburg, who has kept this country reasonably on the left for the past 24 years? Three Justices who - if Trump picks reasonably perky 30-year-olds - will interpret the Constitution and inform the next 50 years of Supreme policy? That SCOTUS could overturn Roe vs Wade without a single peep of argument. dear god. let’s just get back into the sea.

It doesn’t matter if you dislike your Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher if the Wizengamot is composed entirely out of Death Eaters, YOU FOOLS.

* I mean, if I had to pick anyone to fight for my rights, I would pick a tiny angry brilliant 83-year-old Jewish grandmother over pretty much anyone else, but I don’t know if it’s fair to make her do EVERYTHING for me, you know?

[fozmeadows]

WHAT ELODIE SAID JESUS CHRIST

[problematick]

for what it’s worth as a baby lawyer, I can confirm that this justifiably enraged rant is pretty balls on accurate as to the historical importance of this and the next election.

however: nominations only go so far. since we’ve seen an unprecedented level of partisan bullshit in the past eight years–remember that time the government literally shut down in 2013 because congress wouldn’t play nice and do their fucking jobs?–this also makes the senators on your 2016 ticket very, very important.

this article shows, in a handy-dandy graphic, how the nomination to confirmation process works for a supreme court justice–based, in fact, on the man that Barack Obama already nominated for the vacancy left after Antonin Scalia passed in fucking FEBRUARY, and yet still sits empty. why? because the republican majority in the senate has LITERALLY REFUSED TO VOTE ON A NOMINEE BECAUSE IT’S AN ELECTION YEAR. as of october 26th, Merrick Garland’s nomination has remained before the senate for 224 DAYS, THE LONGEST EVER.

the republicans in the senate are defying the Constitution based on the willfully misguided idea that an out-going president shouldn’t be able to nominate a new justice–which is the kind of bullshit that has their champion, antonin scalia, rolling in his grave. (he was many things, but he was NOT one to twist the law to suit his politics when it came to the express powers granted by the Constitution–barack obama has the RIGHT and POWER to nominate any person for the court UP UNTIL HIS LAST GODDAMN DAY IN OFFICE, and that nomination should be put to the proper vote by the judiciary committee and full senate. even if the committee doesn’t like the nominee, tradition says you put them forward to the full senate and just suggest the senate reject the nominee, and they haven’t even done that.) 

the fact that eight justices can decide on the cases they decide to hear doesn’t mean it’s a good thing. though you may hear arguments about the arbitrariness of the number–congress can decide how many they want, it’s been anywhere between 6 and 10 throughout history–the “swing vote” 5-4 decision making that has occurred more and more in the last 20 years is incredibly important in establishing a national consensus when there is a regional divide in court rulings. the SCOTUS literally exists to function as the final say when courts in texas, california, wisconsin, colorado, florida, iowa, ohio, virginia, maine, new jersey, and new york–representative of the 11 circuit courts of appeal–can’t agree on an interpretation of federal or constitutional law. 

(those that say the court shouldn’t be the deciding factor in such landmark issues such as abortion, gun control, or gay marriage ought to take a fucking look at the piss poor job congress has done of coming to any kind of consensus on legislating issues of import since the first clinton presidency and get back to me. and in case you didn’t know: when the court deadlocks 4-4, the lower court’s decision stands, and any circuit split remains unresolved. if you’re thinking to yourself that this sounds bad, you’re right.)

the point is: republicans are banking on a Trump presidency for nominations of far more right leaning jurists, but they are also banking on keeping their majority in both the judiciary committee and the senate as a whole. your vote in 2016 may well shape the political and legal landscape of this country for the next 30 or 40 years, not only for who is nominated to the SCOTUS, but who votes on those nominees.

if you doubt me, consider this: if Chief Justice John Roberts serves until he’s RBG’s age today, he’ll still be sitting on the bench FIVE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS AFTER THIS ONE. for the cheap seats, that’s not until 2036, and he’d still have two years to go to match ruth’s age of 83.

ruth can still fight the good legal fight and drop and give you 20 (pushups. seriously. at eighty-fuckin’-three.) better than probably any of us on such short notice, but it’s time for us to send in the reinforcements, y’all. let RBG rest, and let’s get more women and more color on the bench, shall we?

[elodieunderglass]

omg mate you have NO IDEA how hard I was holding myself back from lunging, like a tormented chained dog, into an impassioned howl about SCALIA, JESUS CHRIST WHY ARE PEOPLE PISSING AROUND COMPLAINING ABOUT SCHOOL LUNCHES WHEN WE HAVEN’T DESTROYED SCALIA’S LAST HORCRUX, but I figured it would

a) honestly be too upsetting for tumblr

and b) I had to gently prise several paragraphs of rant out of my own hands and place them carefully in a drafts folder, like “shhh elodie shhh these were VERY good words, there’s just too many of them, so we’re putting THESE ones somewhere safe now”

but THIS HAS SET ME OFF SO HARD

it’s like THE WHOLE POINT OF AMERICA IS THIS … THIS RING-FENCED LAYER UPON LAYER OF LAW AND ORDER, THIS ENTIRE BALANCED ECOSYSTEM THAT KEEPS ANY ONE PERSON FROM BECOMING TOO POWERFUL

WE HAD A REVOLUTION FOR THIS

WE DID THIS ON PURPOSE

WE SAID “NO MORE KINGS”

WE SAID “THE LAW IS HERE TO SERVE US”

WE SAID “WE THE PEOPLE”

WE SAID THESE WORDS  AND WE WROTE IT ALL DOWN IN THE BELIEF THAT IT WOULD LIMIT THE POWERS OF MADMEN AND FOOLS

AND ALL PEOPLE CARE ABOUT IS THE ONE DECORATIVE FAKE-KING FIGUREHEAD THEY VAGUELY HALF-ASSEDLY ELECT EVERY 4 YEARS

AND WHETHER THEY LIKE THEIR HAIR COLOR

AND THEY DON’T NOTICE THE ECOSYSTEM

THEY DON’T NOTICE RBG

OR THE COURTS

ANY OF THE COURTS

BUT THAT’S LITERALLY THE SELLING POINT OF AMERICA, AND THE WHOLE FUCKING POINT

it was never about the President

even fucking Washington was like “you people are making this waaaaaay too much about the President (and you’re creeping me out)”

it was ALWAYS about the LAW

AAAAAAAAH

[tastefullyoffensive]

[comingouttothechurch]

I haven’t been so happy about a post in a long time.

[comingouttothechurch]

I’m having one of those days where I’m tired of being gay, I’m tired of being single, and I’m tired of being alone (in so many ways).  It’s just like “Please come, Jesus.”

It’s funny to me that so many people are like “everyone wants to go to heaven, but nobody wants to die.”  And I’m over here like “I’m ready.  I wanna see Jesus.”  That kinda day.  Where seeing Jesus trumps the entire rest of my life.  All the good, the happiness, the fun, the work I would do as a ‘faithful servant’... all of it fades away in the bleak cavern of my thoughts, and I’d rather get to heaven a bit earlier than everyone expected.

[comingouttothechurch]

In a society where there are two different sets of  rules for different kinds of people, you're immediately sending a message that those people that don't have those rights, they're somehow lesser and not really full citizens...

actress Cynthia Nixon in “The Out List”

[comingouttothechurch]

Add An Influential Church?

I know I haven’t written in a while, but I haven’t had much to write about.  I could have gone in to one of my 60+ drafts.... :/

Anyway. Want your input for an article I’m going to write.  It’ll be an analysis sort of post... a commentary on the ways large or influential churches, at their most fundamental place, express their beliefs about gender and sexuality.

Churches so far, selected either for their influence or size:

Willow Creek (Illinois, Bill Hybels)

North Point (Georgia, Andy Stanley)

Saddleback (California, Rick Warren)

Southeast Christian (Kentucky, Dave Stone)

Fellowship Church (Texas, Ed Young)

Oak Hills Church (Texas, Max Lucado)

Bethel Church (California, Bill Johnson)

Who would you add to the list?

[vistakai]

People keep saying, “what if men did what you did to ghostbusters but the other way around!!!!!” but 1) You can’t. There isn’t one major blockbuster from the past 30 years with enough girls to do that with, and 2) Don’t assume that I wouldn’t completely support an all male cheetah girls reboot

[comingouttothechurch]

Um… I fully support a Mean Girls reboot with an all male cast.

[comingouttothechurch]

Actually I’d also really like a Miss Congeniality reboot.

[vistakai]

People keep saying, “what if men did what you did to ghostbusters but the other way around!!!!!” but 1) You can’t. There isn’t one major blockbuster from the past 30 years with enough girls to do that with, and 2) Don’t assume that I wouldn’t completely support an all male cheetah girls reboot

[comingouttothechurch]

Um... I fully support a Mean Girls reboot with an all male cast.

[caliiigurlll]

sitting in traffic with ellen and portia (x)

[dyke-supreme]

omg

[birb-bian]

honestly, I’m so jealous?? 

[comingouttothechurch]

I imagine that this girl had her window down, and she was like dancing to U Smile by Bieber and Ellen saw her and was like “omg Portia roll down the window” and Portia got red faced like “oh crap what is she going to do.” and then Ellen heard the Biebs was playing and was waving her arms to get her attention and says something like “HEYYY. HEEEEYYYY.  I LIKE THIS SONG.”

Awkward pause and Ellen says, “Nice throwback!”

And the girl says, “Get it Ellen!” who starts to dance, too.  And though this girl was kinda freaking out and starstruck, she was just so in to the groove that she kept dancing, pulled out her phone and casually snapped this pic.

[yungcourt]

[comingouttothechurch]

i’m grey.

[elielcruzwrites-deactivated2018]

The LGBT Experience In Christianity

When ~straight~ theologians only write about LGBT things

When straight Christians center themselves in LGBT conversations. 

When straight Christians get all up in your sex life.

When straight Christians read to LGBT people their interpretation of scripture

When Christians try to “save” you from your sexuality

When Christians invite you to bible study but you know it’s really an intervention to your sexuality

When it turns out it’s more likely straight Christians rather than LGBT Christians to be pedophiles.

How you feel being the only out queer at youth vespers 

    When Christians introduce you as “SSA”

The first time you attend a Christian meeting on “homosexualism”

When your lived experience conflicts with their interpretation of theology and they’re all like:

When they say you can’t be LGBT and Christian

When there’s a conference on “homosexuality” but all the speakers are straight

When Christians finally ask how many LGBT persons have been hurt by the church 

We know how to handle these types of Christians 

Just kidding they’re my family in Christ 

[pumpkinspicetears]

tHIS IS THE MOST PERFECTION I’VE SEEN IN A POST IN DECADES

[comingouttothechurch]

baaaahhhahahahhaahahaaha

[but-is-it-gay-tho]

How on earth can you possibly think it's okay with God to be homosexual and Christian?

[comingouttothechurch]

Props gay-son-of-a-pastor.  hahaha.

[peaceshannon]

Nepal's bogus orphan trade fuelled by rise in 'voluntourism'      

Like an increasing number of tourists visiting Nepal’s mountain peaks, colourful markets and lush national parks, Marina Argeisa wanted to experience the latest must-do activity on the tourist trail: a volunteering stint at an orphanage.

What the 26-year-old Spaniard did not know was that her good intentions were unwittingly feeding an industry that dupes poor parents into sending their children to bogus orphanages in order to extract money from well-meaning foreigners.

It is a business model built on a double deception: the exploitation of poor families in rural Nepal and the manipulation of wealthy foreigners. In the worst cases, tourists may be unwittingly complicit in child trafficking.…

Yet many of the occupants of these sites have at least one living parent. The latest investigation by Unicef, the UN’s children agency, found that 85% of children in the orphanages they visited had at least one living parent.

The trade in children begins in Nepal’s remote and impoverished countryside, where parents are tricked into sending their children to orphanages, often lured by the promise of an education.…

“Once a child enters an orphanage, he or she seems to become the property of the orphanage owner … [In effect], they become prisoners of the orphanage,” he said. “[They] use the children as an income source, through the sponsorship of children who are presented as being orphans when they are not … and through the exploitation of overseas volunteers.”

When Dorota Nvotova, a young Slovakian, began volunteering at Happy Home in 2008, she was so moved by the children’s plight that she found a sponsor for every one of them. She raised about €150,000 (£122,000) for the home, but it was only later that she discovered the real reason its owner was so eager to attract foreign volunteers.

“It’s definitely about him making money. For him, it’s a business,” she said. “Whenever volunteers came he always tried to impress them and then they started fundraising for him.”…

After strange behaviour at the orphanage aroused her suspicions about the home’s proprietor, Argeisa discovered that two sisters publicised as being orphans had living parents who had paid vast sums of money to a broker to send their children to the home to be educated.

And they were being educated, but at a cost far beyond anything her parents could imagine. The girls were being used to generate donations from tourists, with the orphanage claiming that their mother and father had abandoned them and no other relatives could be found.…

After one of the sisters confessed that she was being sexually abused by the owner, Argeisa reported the allegations to a local children’s organisation, Action for Child Rights (ACR). The owner of the orphanage was subsequently arrested for attempted rape.

“This was very, very hard … I couldn’t stop my feelings against that man,” Argeisa said. “I think his mission was making money … and abusing children … He wouldn’t have set up the home if there were no westerners coming and giving money and doing volunteering.…

This is not an exceptional case, says Jürgen Conings, general director of ACR, who has spent 10 years in Nepal investigating the nexus between foreigners, adoption agencies and orphanages. "I’m 100% sure that the majority of these homes are built for reasons other than childcare,” he said. “Foreign volunteers give a home credibility … and they pay to volunteer, so it’s a strong business model.”

A report by Tourism Research and Marketing estimates that volunteer tourism attracts 1.6 million people a year, and that the market is worth up to £1.3bn.

While there are no reliable figures about the scale of voluntourism in Nepal, Martin Punaks, country director of Next Generation Nepal, which reunites orphanage-trafficked children with their families, believes it is a growing industry. “There is the potential for huge profits to be made for those who intentionally and unnecessarily displace children from their families, so they can be used as lucrative poverty commodities to raise funds from well-intentioned but ill-informed tourists,” he said.

[brandx]

“The latest investigation by Unicef, the UN’s children agency, found that 85% of children in the orphanages they visited had at least one living parent”

And yet UNICEF insists on continuing to define any (non-white/non-Western/indigenous) child who’s lost just ONE parent as an “orphan.”

[seattlbites]

Someone just pointed out to me how Anne Frank and Martin Luther King JR. were both born in the same year, but most people associate them as being in complete different points in history.

[echoinghills-deactivated2021021]

This blew my mind

[rampant-noodle]

holy fucking shit

[comingouttothechurch]

They were born in the same year, but Anne was 13 when she went in to hiding (July 1942), sent to a concentration camp (August 1944) and died in early 1945. Dr. King, while active in Civil Rights issues in the mid 50s, did not deliver his iconic “I Have A Dream” speech until August 28, 1963, during the March on Washington... that means 18.5 years passed between these two iconic moments.  18.5 years IS two completely different points in history, and that’s why people think of them that way.  We’re talking the difference between WWII and the Civil Rights Movement.  They happened kinda far apart in time...

[comingouttothechurch]

Bob Russell, a former pastor of Southeast Christian Church (one of the largest churches in the country), writes a simple response to the Supreme Court decision on gay marriage.  He certainly believes that homosexuality is a sin, but I still liked the main message of this article:

“The best thing that Christians can do to preserve Biblical marriage is to live in their own lives a shining example of what a Biblical marriage should be.”

Particularly funny because that’s kinda what we’ve been saying all along.  “Look, you can go have your Christian marriages. We don’t want to interfere with those at all. Just let us do our thing over here, too. And both of us, we’ll try not to get in too much to each other’s businesses or get everyone uncomfortable.”

But also funny because he (without saying it) recognizes the futility of fighting this equality fight at this point.  And just says “look, go live the Christian example, and let them see it and want it for themselves.”

Now isn’t that the best way to attract people to Jesus and what he wants for them?

[comingouttothechurch]