What follows is a comment I saw on a Facebook friend’s timeline from a Middle Eastern Evangelical by the name of Mohammad Yamout. Yamout, trained at uber-Fundamentalist Bob Jones University, spends his days evangelizing Lebanese Muslims and non-Christians. I thought it would be interesting for readers to see how Yamout views the world and LGBTQ people — especially those who don’t worship his version of the Christian deity.
My Facebook friend is a former heterosexual Evangelical who is now a gay atheist. Yamout said:
Yamout’s screed accomplishes what, exactly? As a former Evangelical, my friend already knows what the Bible says about homosexuality. He already knows what the Bible says about the human condition and our “supposed” need of redemption. Yamout comes off as an insufferable troll who loves to hear himself talk. He can’t seriously believe that his words will have any meaningful effect on my friend other than to remind him of how glad he is to have left Evangelicalism in the rearview mirror. No, I suspect the real reason that Yamout — a Trump supporter — goes after my friend is that he needs to assert his “rightness” or he wants to let his fellow homophobes know that he is on the same team as they are. Either that, or he is a deeply closeted homosexual who rages against LGBTQ people in an attempt to hide who he really is. If the past decade has taught me anything, when Evangelical preachers scream, holler, and preach against a particular sin, you will find buried deep in their closets the very “sin” they preach against. Is this true of Yamout? Who knows?
About Bruce Gerencser
Bruce Gerencser, 62, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 41 years. He and his wife have six grown children and twelve grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist. For more information about Bruce, please read the About page.
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It’s difficult for me to believe your friend is a former heterosexual who is now gay. Maybe he is a formerly closeted homosexual who married a woman and maybe even had kids?
I will leave it to him to tell his own story. He was married, has a child, and is now gay.
Sexual orientation is a spectrum. Intense emotional intimacy is a thing, and for unlucky people doesn’t necessarily match with sexual orientation. We need to respect everyone’s choices in these matters, understanding that marriage implies family as well.
I read a blog post recently that said something to the effect of X (a graduate of a program that supposedly turns gay people into straight people) has come out as still gay. Meanwhile, he’s got a wife and kids! How could she stay with him??? How could he do this to them??? …or some such BS. The thing is, relationships can be far more fluid than we take them for. There are such things as open marriages. There is such a thing as emotional intimacy that can’t be carried into sexual intimacy. We don’t know how people in these awkward situations deal with them, and guess what, it isn’t any of our business.
Also, I wish them all good outcomes.
I have long argued that marriage is a contract between two people; that the terms of the contract vary from couple to couple. I pastored one couple who had been married for decades. She wanted nothing to do with sex — after having children — and was fine with her husband finding sexual satisfaction elsewhere. They were, best I could tell, happily married. I learned from 25 years of pastoring married couples that no two marriages are the same; that outwardly happy couples can have miserable marriages and fussing & fighting couples can and do get along famously.
Hello. I’m that guy. So I knew I was attracted to guys when I was 14, and I repressed my sexuality while starting to be open about “my struggle” when I was 18. I vowed not to act on it and found a woman I was attracted to and knew about me. We got married, had a son, and I discovered she was cheating through the Ashley Madison account. We got divorced, I endured major spiritual abuse that got me to listen to my doubts, and I left Fundamentalism. At that point, I came out as gay—had my first gay experience at 28 and soon became a Secular Humanist.
My ex-wife and I coparent our son, and she surprised me last year when she came out. She is currently engaged to another woman, and our son is benefiting greatly from having supportive homes—a thing my evangelical parents could never put their differences aside and do, despite both claiming to be empowered by the actual Holy Spirit of God living inside of them.
Thanks, Brady.
Sexual orientation may be a spectrum, but it is not fluid. The first person I ever told that I was gay was my pastor. I also told him I had never had sex with anyone. His response? “You’re not gay. You’ve just experienced same-sex attraction.” It was impossible to convince him that gay is an orientation, not a behavior. Yet I know he assumed heterosexuality is a default for any male who hasn’t become sexually active yet.
I nearly made a mess of my life and someone else’s, listening to him. He encouraged me to date a female in the church that I never should have asked out. I value honesty above everything, so I eventually told her what was going on with me. She wasn’t happy with me or the pastor, but we were spared something awful. And that’s how I finally came to terms with being gay and decided I didn’t want to be alone anymore. Very soon after that, I left conservative Christianity.
BJU, infecting people worldwide with their particular brand of hatred, bigotry, and nastiness toward fellow humans.
What is a “fake family” anyway? I have seen many instances in which non-blood-related people are family.
Nothing wrong with what the Pastor said. He told the truth. Don’t be mislead GOD is not blind to what you do. To have a relationship with JESUS CHRIST cost you everything you have to die to self. The flesh is at war against GOD. We are to put to death the lust of the flesh. Seek after the spirit of GOD. Your lifestyle will cost you. “For the wages of sin is death but the free gift of GOD is eternal life through JESUS CHRIST the LORD ” Death eternal seperation from GOD. Currently “we live and breath and have our being in HIM “. Indulging the flesh for a few moments of pleasure isn’t worth an eternity in hell. GOD gives each one of us a choice. The pastor made his and it looks like you have made yours. The pastors words were not hate filled but yours are.
sigh
So hlamincho, you’ve got choice have you? Are you really sure? I’m assuming by your comment that you like women (it’s pretty clear you’re a man), and perhaps even lust after them. Of course that’s okay in your book, because that’s what god intended. Now ask yourself this. Could you bring yourself to have sex with a man, ignoring just for a moment that you think it’s wrong by the bible? Really think about it.
The answer is that you could not, no matter how much you might try (and I’ll concede you probably didn’t try very hard). Now tell me it’s a choice! ‘Man or woman, think I’ll go woman’. It doesn’t work like that. Your hormones, your whole biological make up, causes how you feel, so there is no ‘choice’, except perhaps in a very small number of people, and then it’s still biology. Do you not understand this basic fact?
So, hlamincho, why did your alleged god create flesh, if it finds it so icky?
Sexual orientation is not a choice.
Neither is belief. One cannot sincerely choose to believe or disbelieve; that’s a background process dependent largely on the unconscious mind and one’s life experiences. I’ve known of the Bible for well over 50 years (read it back in the 1960s, in fact), and it’s such a blatantly ridiculous anthology of ineptly-told fables that I can only see it as fiction.
And why would I want a relationship with some 2000-years-dead fellow to gain admission into an eternal life that I don’t even want? Nope, there’s nothing in your beliefs that interests me in the slightest.
Naw, you don’t really want us to follow God, hlamincho. What you want is for us to agree with you. To blindly follow your opinion without question. To confirm your held beliefs.
You do not really want us to follow God or seek truth, because that would be the same as admitting that you, hlamincho, could be wrong. It would be admitting that what people say, write, and believe about God, and the true nature of God–what he wants and even whether he/she/they/it exists or not–are two completely separate and independent things.
What you and Yamout only have to offer is your opinion on what human beings should do. Moreover this opinion of yours seems to be held without any knowledge of our scientific understanding of people or sexuality in general. And if so, then what value is your opinion? Perhaps you’re the type who sees a conflict between God and science, but I see it the other way around. Reject science (without reason or better evidence) and you may as well reject God. You aren’t interested in seeking truth, only offering narrow-minded interpretations of some paper Idol that you made out of scripture.
Finally, I find it interesting that you claimed Yamout’s screed wasn’t filled with hate. To be more precise, Yamout’s diatribe is asinine, selfish, manipulative and controlling. It is filled with demands that Bruce’s friend behave how Yamout thinks he ought to. It does not treat Bruce’s friend as a person, just as an object to correct. It seemed insulting, and come to think of it, yeah the word “hate” does accurately describe it. You, hlamincho, are a liar. That was your choice to make, and I will treat your words accordingly.
Nothing non-Christian in anything hlmincho says here. This person truly represents Christianity as is it is across the USA, praise God!
The point this believer makes is to hate your filthy worthless scum-self and then beg God not to murder you as he chose to allow for his own son, Jesus. Beg to be Jesus and not yourself, your ugly, stupid dumbfuck image in the mirror. Then God can give you a break even though such a worthless piece of crap as yourself does not deserve it and you know it! If you indulge in the flesh like an atheist, like a Gerencser, then its an eternity in HELL. What are you, just dumb???
To Gerencser, the believer states: “The pastors words were not hate filled but yours are.”
Classic perversion of truth al a 1984.
Let’s end with another Christian quote: “Kill them all. God will know his own.”
Oh, amazing grace…
Read the bible for yourself. Ask God to show you his truth,then be open to it. It’s not about anyone but you and God. We all will be only accountable to him.
Why, none of us have ever read the Bible. sigh If only we had read the Bible, we’d still be Christians (and heterosexual).
I read the Bible a long, long time ago — more than half a century ago, in fact. I immediately came to the conclusion that this “God” character was fictional. Over the years, the blatant inconsistency of Christian beliefs and response to prayer has just solidified that impression.
As I’m not in the habit of asking fictional characters anything, your advice is useless to me.
Dale, why not cut out the middleman and just listen to God directly? I mean, he may not say much, and possibly doesn’t even exist in the first place, but surely that’d be the more honest approach than blindly accepting whatever you pesky human beings presume to write or speak of on its behalf.
Is that all there is too it? Wow Dale Tyler. Who knew.
Does sexuality HAVE to be set in stone? I’ve lived a long-ish heterosexual life with no homesexual experiences as yet and so far no real desire for any. But if Brad Badd of circa 1999 was to try and talk me into bed right this afternoon… Well then I reserve the right to say “why the hell not?” Nobody’s going to get hurt and I’ll have an interesting day.
There is no doubt that many – probably most – people are born with their sexuality and they can’t just be told to go and change it. But at the end of the day sex between two fully consenting adults is a pretty beautiful thing – no matter who they are, where they thought they were on the spectum and what bits they actually have.
Why can’t people just be allowed to consensually f*ck whoever they like. SURELY religion and society has bigger fish to fry?