In school, gym was my favorite class. I was no jock. I just loved playing sports. I grew up, throughout high-school wearing pants in gym class.
No biggie right? Until you get to high school and guys' testosterone goes all like whoa and I'm the tiniest kid in my grade and i'm the only boy wearing pants during gym class.....
2 + 2 = I'm the target for all sexually repressed bully boys to get at.....
I became "pants boy." I got punched many times over in gym class because I was such an easy target....and yeah I was even "pantsed" to the point that I was stripped down naked in front of my entire class simply because I was wearing pants because of my religious belief.
But as for me, back then, as a confused kid... I thought such a kind of persecution was to be expected in the name of the Lord. Like Jesus Christ Himself you know?
So I learned to keep my tears on hold as the girl I wanted to marry laughed at me as she saw me naked in gym class...just learned to be late to class after gym is all:
Learn to just cry real quiet in the showers simply because I wore pants... because I was told by my pastor to wear pants... because that's what his bible told him to do is all....
But all in the name of Christ right? And that's why I could deal with the tears. If Jesus cried for being killed, surely I could cry for having to wear pants, right?
Learned to get a thick skin. Hoped it went away. Never went away. Dudes ask why I never wore pants. Tell them "My God wouldn't let me." They'd laugh and call me "faggot" and then pants me. That was the way man. I was a puny kid. And yeah it was as pitiful as it sounds. You get used to it to the point that when I hear about kids getting bullied I think to myself "I got through it, why can't they?!?" Doesn't make it right....
And yeah... those insults, they never went away in high school. But it's okay... those bullies made me who I am right?
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| (1868 ad against northerners moving down south) |
The KKK started in 1865.
Does the year ring a bell?
And I'm not talking about Lincoln....
I'm talking about when the civil war was won for America. And the South lost. This is when the KKK started.
Except some bitter southern folks with their panties in a bunch started the kkk. Started burning crosses.
And up to a hundred years later were killing black men because AMERICA WAS WHITE ANGLO-SAXON PROTESTANT FORGODSAKES! And when things got strained, they killed black men who allegedly dated white women.
FOR GOD AND COUNTRY?
And I'm not about to compare our age with what has come before us....
But I'm just saying, there were people who thought they were in the right and in God's will within the past century.....
But like.... I have an older sister who has the sensibility to do her due diligence in figuring out what she was supposed to believe and ....
come on UPCI: (from their website)
Boy Scouts of America. As you have probably heard, the Boy Scouts recently voted to open its membership to boys who openly profess to be homosexual. The General School Division oversees our scouting program, and they are working on a suitable alternative for our churches. In the meantime the Executive Board adopted the following statement, which is available at www.upci.org:
"The UPCI welcomes everyone to attend its churches and to participate in worship events. At the same time, the UPCI teaches that sexual relationships outside the marriage of one man and one woman are contrary to God's will. Moreover, the UPCI rejects the belief that people should define their identity by sexual predispositions, temptations, or acts that are contrary to the Word of God. Recently, the Boy Scouts of America changed its policy to provide for the acceptance of members who openly proclaim a homosexual identity, and local troops are required to implement this policy. The UPCI opposes this policy because it categorizes homosexuality as an essential identity, thereby indicating that homosexual activity is an acceptable moral choice for Christians."
And it's cool, real cool to have your own identity:
Boys freak out at boys who wear pants when they think they should wear shorts.
Girls freak out at girls when they should get a hair cut.
Adults freak out a blacks for being sub-human. And then decide to kill them....
Adults make it real understood that if you're a boy and you may like other boys, you aren't welcome here. And if you're a girl who may be likes girls... well screw you! Get out! And if you're parents are in the UPC? Say nothing. Say nothing about what you are feeling in your confusion as a kid. Because if you're a cool kid looking for the truth, you'll be straight!!!! No hurt feelings!. LOL
Commit those kids to a gutter why don't you...Wait no, commit them to hell before they even have a chance to express themselves...
All in the name of the Boy Scouts of America folding on hating on kids who think they may be gay...
Seriously?!? Seriously?!?
Who is the UPC's Jesus at this point? Other than a Jesus whose looking to make money off the failure of the Boy Scout's own homophobia gone-a-wry?
And let's think...
real hard now...
As a kid who grew up in the UPC who got pantsed naked in front of a class of 40 kids as I was called faggot because I wore pants.....
Let's think about persecution....
Let's think about what it feels like... the soar bump in your throat you hold back as a confused 12 year old kid... looking for anyone...trying not to cry
Dear God.. I was looking for love. I was looking for a hug. Holding back that bump in your throat for two years:
And suddenly you're a 14 year old boy who was supposed to be a man but could only give you a choked-up explanation of why I looked like a fool on an 85 degree day all in the name of Christ....
And by the time your 14, you learn to take the punches and bow your head and then nod a little and say.... so this... this is how it goes? The tears are dead by then...
And yeah man, it was embarrassing.... But long-term it was fine. Didn't mind...
And you find out years later.... you got friends who suffered way more than you. Years where those friends couldn't even express the pain that I could express to my youth group.
And these were my best friends. People you could hug and do a jig with and then make fun of each other about without worrying what each person thought....The friends that literally want nothing other than a friday night than to just hang out for the sake of having a laugh and having no worries and just enjoying communion as brothers and enjoying acting as awkward human beings unsure of how to behave as Oneness Pentecostals....
You find out those friends went through a hell of a lot more because they were gay. And grew up in the same denomination that you did. And while I felt bad about myself about wearing pants when other kids were wearing shorts, my friends were raised being told they were going to hell forever....
So like when you're out to hurt someone we understand trying to make fun of it...
But when you're a religious denomination representing the truth of Christianity and there on your very website is a paragraph about how you're out to banning confused boys if they think they are possibly gay?!?
And this is why the UPC reminds me of a 13 year old bitter child who realizes that no girls like them.....
Boys freak out at boys who wear pants when they think they should wear shorts.
Girls freak out at girls when they should get a hair cut.
Adults freak out a blacks for being sub-human. And then decide to kill them....
Adults make it real understood that if you're a boy and you may like other boys, you aren't welcome here. And if you're a girl who may be likes girls... well screw you! Get out! And if you're parents are in the UPC? Say nothing. Say nothing about what you are feeling in your confusion as a kid. Because if you're a cool kid looking for the truth, you'll be straight!!!! No hurt feelings!. LOL
Commit those kids to a gutter why don't you...Wait no, commit them to hell before they even have a chance to express themselves...
All in the name of the Boy Scouts of America folding on hating on kids who think they may be gay...
Seriously?!? Seriously?!?
Who is the UPC's Jesus at this point? Other than a Jesus whose looking to make money off the failure of the Boy Scout's own homophobia gone-a-wry?
And let's think...
real hard now...
As a kid who grew up in the UPC who got pantsed naked in front of a class of 40 kids as I was called faggot because I wore pants.....
Let's think about persecution....
Let's think about what it feels like... the soar bump in your throat you hold back as a confused 12 year old kid... looking for anyone...trying not to cry
Dear God.. I was looking for love. I was looking for a hug. Holding back that bump in your throat for two years:
And suddenly you're a 14 year old boy who was supposed to be a man but could only give you a choked-up explanation of why I looked like a fool on an 85 degree day all in the name of Christ....
And by the time your 14, you learn to take the punches and bow your head and then nod a little and say.... so this... this is how it goes? The tears are dead by then...
And yeah man, it was embarrassing.... But long-term it was fine. Didn't mind...
And you find out years later.... you got friends who suffered way more than you. Years where those friends couldn't even express the pain that I could express to my youth group.
And these were my best friends. People you could hug and do a jig with and then make fun of each other about without worrying what each person thought....The friends that literally want nothing other than a friday night than to just hang out for the sake of having a laugh and having no worries and just enjoying communion as brothers and enjoying acting as awkward human beings unsure of how to behave as Oneness Pentecostals....
You find out those friends went through a hell of a lot more because they were gay. And grew up in the same denomination that you did. And while I felt bad about myself about wearing pants when other kids were wearing shorts, my friends were raised being told they were going to hell forever....
So like when you're out to hurt someone we understand trying to make fun of it...
But when you're a religious denomination representing the truth of Christianity and there on your very website is a paragraph about how you're out to banning confused boys if they think they are possibly gay?!?
And this is why the UPC reminds me of a 13 year old bitter child who realizes that no girls like them.....
Let's be rational human beings? Who wrote that paragraph? And until that paragraph is retracted let's do the UPC a favor and let them know that if they want to go to heaven, they'll have to stop hating on children:
7 Woe unto the world because of offences! for it must needs be that offences come; but woe to that man by whom the offence cometh!"
-Jesus (Matthew 18:6-7)
Let's extract: If you're a barrier to children finding Christ because you're banning them from a cool kid's group with "NO GAYS ALLOWED!" Then you're probably going to hell... (verse 6)
And if you're getting all pissy and cranky because the world is offending you (e.g. "Gays can get married!), and you react to the offenses of the world... Jesus has an outright "Woe!" for you...(verse 7)
In conclusion: The UPCI is going to Super Hell and in the mean time Jesus is all like "woe! This is some screwed up immature nonsense you guys!"
Because, when you're claiming to be the Full Truth.... there's nothing sadder than turning away gay kids before they even have the chance to be redeemed by that truth. Like why be so insecure UPC? If our church pastors and ministers are so confident about the efficacy of their Truth and are secure in their heterosexuality, what does it hurt to have a ministry that openly embraces gay people? It's not like they're going to turn you gay?
But instead you have the UPCI with all it's sassiness wanting to keep the strange face of a homosexual as far away as possible because there's nothing worse than talking to them and realizing that gay people are human too.