I confess that I was not aware of Shane Dawson before I saw this video which has been circulating over the past couple of days. [NOTE: video contains swearing]
I want to express my appreciation for the honest sincerity with which Dawson talks about his sexual identity.
And I want to draw attention to the role that religion and God play in the video.
One of the reasons it took therapy for him to be able to finally acknowledge his attraction towards men, and eventually come out and say that he is bisexual, is because of church upbringing. His upbringing made him afraid of a God who condemns people of the sort that he was discovering himself to be.
By the end of the video, we learn that he still believes in God. I was moved by his discovery of the reality that a God who made him this way will not condemn him for being the way he is.
But I was particularly struck by his statement that, if unlike him you don’t believe in God, so much the better.
This video is a great illustration of what the anti-gay forms of Christianity are doing to people. Making them miserable. Making them need therapy. Driving them to the brink of losing their faith. And when they cling to it, making them feel as though those who don’t believe in God are better off than they are.
As a progressive Christian, I have to say that the conservative forms of Christianity that make people feel this way about themselves – and about the love they feel for others – are something terrible.
Indeed, let me suggest that there is one word that seems particularly apt…
Anti-gay Christianity is an abomination.
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