Pray For Me?

A friend of my aunt and uncle's came to pick us up at the airport the other night.

She talks a lot.

She's one of those people who, when she talks, realizes she's talking a lot and then says something like, "Enough about me, what about you." before interrupting again to talk more about herself. Heard all about how she cleaned my aunt and uncle's house, how she rearranged cupboards and how she loved to vacuum. How she and my dog had become great friends (stop the lies - Jackson only has eyes and a heart for his mama!) and on and on and on and on.

Usually people who talk incessantly like this, I ignore. People who lie a lot can not stand silence -- they fear that people might be piecing together their stories and are about to bust them. If people who lie can keep talking long enough to wear out their listeners, then they have a chance of keeping their "stories" going. I see it all the time online -- pretenders who need to keep their audiences captive. They hardly step off line to live their glorious lives. They hide under masks of confidence that really sound pathetically needy.

This woman -- this friend of my auntie and uncle -- is no different.

As she was talking, she sensed that I was not active in her production. So she pulled the homosexual card.

"I have a friend who is doing ministries with homosexual people in Los Angeles," she said.

I did not comment.

"Oh," my uncle said. It sounded like a warning.

She didn't heed it.

"Yeah, he says that we should stop preaching to homosexuals and just love them instead."

What the...

My father is a pastor. So is my uncle.. or rather, so was my uncle before he left the ministry and went into financial planning. I've grown up in the church. Never, ever have I been told that someone is going to minister directly to me and love me "despite my homosexuality" which is really what this woman was saying to me: We've given up on converting you, so we'll just pray and love you even though you're a sick homosexual.

She went on to say something about no one's sin being greater than another person's and that is when I cleared my throat and told her that I wasn't sinning.

My father doesn't minister to me any more than he ministers to anyone else in his life. I am not in more need of prayer than anyone else is and my "lifestyle" does not need a special subgroup in the Sinners and Saints manual. If someone thinks my "sin" isn't any more than their sin, then they can go ahead with all that. But don't drag me into the discussion -- I don't subscribe to it.

I am not sinning. Loving someone is not a sin. The bible says that a man who lies down with a man the way that he would lie down with a woman is an abomination. An abomination is not a sin, and I don't have time to school anyone or give out vocabulary lessons. It's not my interpretation of the bible, it's simple comprehension that they teach in second grade. In order to understand what you are reading you must first have context. And your context is sadly lacking if you line up what you view to be my "sin" next to your sin of gossiping, cheating, lying, stealing or murder. My loving my girlfriend is not chiseled into a stone tablet (or two.) Jesus did not speak on my supposed sin, so seriously, sit down with that. "You" don't have to set up a special ministry section to tend to me and my friends anymore than you should set up a special ministry section to tend to you and your friends.

Don't get me started.

But that's fine. You pray for me and my homosexuality.

I'll pray for you, too.