Can you be gay and religious?

[TX-Beau]

I’m gay and Catholic. Ok I’m à la carte in the sense I do pick and choose stuff I agree and don’t agree with. But having faith/being religious isn’t a bad thing. The bad thing is how organised religions twist and manipulate beliefs to benefit the corrupt members in it.

I would argue that organized religions manipulate belief in order to secure their own authority, and protect the corrupt because acknowledging them would erode their justification for control.

 

[Harke the Boeotarch]

I’m gay and Catholic. Ok I’m à la carte in the sense I do pick and choose stuff I agree and don’t agree with. But having faith/being religious isn’t a bad thing. The bad thing is how organised religions twist and manipulate beliefs to benefit the corrupt members in it.

People are evil. People are corrupt. Religion is who we are, at a fundamental level.

I would argue that organized religions manipulate belief in order to secure their own authority, and protect the corrupt because acknowledging them would erode their justification for control.

If you don´t do that, your religious organisation has a considerable chance of dissolving, and many have.

 

[Adyguy1558]

I personally identify as Bi, but within the Anglo Catholic (high church) wing of the Church of England, there are - and always have been - quite a lot of gay clergy and more than a few lay people. It's a tradition which attracts me though because I'm a "bells and smells" person, not because I'm remotely interested in how many inches of lace the clergy and servers are sporting.

 

[Telstra]

Yes and no,
yes if you believe want you want.
No if you believe want others want.

 

[Jacquemar]

I personally identify as Bi, but within the Anglo Catholic (high church) wing of the Church of England, there are - and always have been - quite a lot of gay clergy and more than a few lay people. It's a tradition which attracts me though because I'm a "bells and smells" person, not because I'm remotely interested in how many inches of lace the clergy and servers are sporting.

I've found that to be true as well. My mother is an Anglo-Catholic and, despite that the parish is very small, there are several gay parishoners.

 

[Jacquemar]

Don't go looking for answers about The Bible and homosexuality on Youtube. Almost every video I've come across is full of lies.

 

[Kulindahr]

Don't go looking for answers about The Bible and homosexuality on Youtube. Almost every video I've come across is full of lies.

Some of the worst are ones claiming to explain what other people get wrong... and getting it totally wrong themselves. And those generally come from the viewpoint that they can know everything about the Bible by reading it in the King James version, totally ignoring the fact that it was written by ancient authors in an ancient language in a very foreign (almost alien) culture for audiences that had a very different understanding of the world, in forms of literature so strange to us that it takes experts a lot of work to get how those kinds of literature work.

 

[LandSome80]

I think if you are christian you can(catholic, protestant...) but if you are misunderstanding this religion with antigay propaganda you will just run your own life...by the way I can't talk.

 

[CyborgDreamSt8]

You can definitely be gay and religious, though it is exceedingly easier to just be spiritual, or be a part of a less than organized religion.

I was raised in the Southern Baptist church, and thankfully ran away from all their hateful rhetoric in my early teens. I have dabbled in many religions since then, and finally came to the realization that I just didn't honestly believe in any of them and settled on Humanism as the one that worked best for me. But I know many people who are gay and who are part of the Abrahamic faiths, from Judaism, to Catholic, and even a few Muslims. While they most definitely don't tend to have absolute full acceptance from their spiritual community they still find a way to make it work and say that they feel spiritually fulfilled. Guess it really just depends on what you are looking to get out of it.

 

[LandSome80]

You can definitely be gay and religious, though it is exceedingly easier to just be spiritual, or be a part of a less than organized religion.

I was raised in the Southern Baptist church, and thankfully ran away from all their hateful rhetoric in my early teens. I have dabbled in many religions since then, and finally came to the realization that I just didn't honestly believe in any of them and settled on Humanism as the one that worked best for me. But I know many people who are gay and who are part of the Abrahamic faiths, from Judaism, to Catholic, and even a few Muslims. While they most definitely don't tend to have absolute full acceptance from their spiritual community they still find a way to make it work and say that they feel spiritually fulfilled. Guess it really just depends on what you are looking to get out of it.

Luckly many priests and religiouses are open mind

 

[CyborgDreamSt8]

Luckly many priests and religiouses are open mind

Um... where? I mean that sincerely. Outside of a handful of denominations of Christianity, and a few of the more reformed Jewish groups I have never really seen anything but negative reactions, ranging from either dismissal to open hostility towards gay people in the biggest mainstream religions. Now when it comes to things like Unitarian Universalists, Western Buddhist groups, Neo-Pagans, Humanists, and stuff like that, yeah, they are open minded.

 

[CyborgDreamSt8]

It's not all black or white.

It would have been quite nice if they'd bothered to include things like Neo-Pagan, or even just Wicca in this infographic. Those religions tend to be overwhelmingly supportive, unless you go to extremes like Asatru, which tends to be less so, and also a LOT more rampantly racist, at least in my experience with them. Hell, they didn't even bring in the Native, Aboriginal, or Afro-Spiritual religions like those that were the forebears of Voodoo, Santeria, Candomble, etc. Most of those are also quite overwhelmingly supportive of homosexuals.

 

[LandSome80]

It would have been quite nice if they'd bothered to include things like Neo-Pagan, or even just Wicca in this infographic. Those religions tend to be overwhelmingly supportive, unless you go to extremes like Asatru, which tends to be less so, and also a LOT more rampantly racist, at least in my experience with them. Hell, they didn't even bring in the Native, Aboriginal, or Afro-Spiritual religions like those that were the forebears of Voodoo, Santeria, Candomble, etc. Most of those are also quite overwhelmingly supportive of homosexuals.

you are like but my 'many' was about modern versions of these religions

 

[CyborgDreamSt8]

you are like but my 'many' was about modern versions of these religions

Sorry for the misunderstanding. I wasn't using that to reply to you. I just happened to notice it further up and decided to comment on it.

 

[MainEntry]

One can be gay and part of a mainline denomination and parish. I'm an example. We have gay clergy, etc.

 

[Tantric-Master]

The Dalai Lama came out in support of same-sex relationships, so being gay and spiritual is not a contradiction.

 

[Tantric-Master]

There is a big difference between "religious" and "spiritual". It is my understanding that spirituality is related to one's insights into the true nature of Self and the Reality ... while "religiosity" is related to the dogmas, rituals, and scriptures of a particular religious sect. It has been my experience that truly aware spiritual beings have no problem with gays; most of the problems seem to arise with the "religious" ones.

 

[cuck72]

I ask, can you still be good in the Lord's eyes when you indulge in any kind of pornography? if you have these perverted gay or other sexual thoughts like being a cuckold? I would think these are all sins, so can you still ask for forgiveness, and then keep on being a porn addict?

Having a gay relationship, or even sissy gay or wife sharing fantasies, aren't they still sins in the Lord's eyes even if you say forgive me Lord?

I just wonder because don't most of us have some kind of hot sexual fantasies that we keep going back to, and masturbate to?

 

[NotHardUp1]

I'm not convinced sins are what orthodoxy teaches.

As for true repentance being the requirement to be a true believer, I just don't think I ascribe to the catechism we were all raised with.

In the Jewish tradition, so many things were declared sins that we don't believe today. Polygamy itself somehow migrated in the dark of nigh to the big sin list. Yet, the patriarchs were polygamists, and no theologian can cite the clear reason without imputing it.

In my experience, Christians all fall short of our confesions. All believers have our "favorite sins."

Don't get me wrong. Licentious is still a sin, but consider how Jesus and his Father treated harlots. They had much more ire for the merciless.

 

[NotHardUp1]

The Dalai Lama came out in support of same-sex relationships, so being gay and spiritual is not a contradiction.

Tibetan Buddhists constitute only 400,000 of about 500,000,000 Buddhists worldwide. Allowing that even 10 times the Tibetan population may venerate the Dalai Lama globally, that would be less than 1% of Buddhism's total.

Does the Dalai Lama's stance represent his followers' social views of homosexuality? Does Tibetan Buddhism's leader's comment repesent the view of the majority of Buddhists in its home countries in the East?

I ask because leaders often make statements that do not represent the majority of adherents. And Westerners often cite Tibetan Buddhism's character as being the nature of Buddhism when the religion itself isn't as philosophic as Tibetan Buddhism. Globally, it appears to be very explicitly a polytheistic, traditional religion, not the more abstracted philosophy espoused by its Western followers.

To be clear, both versions of Buddhism are equally valid, as each culture has every right to see its religion as they do, and Buddhism has no onus to prove itself beyond the Western definition of religion.