In Continuum.

Jokingly, I've been called many names in response to my religious beliefs (none at all). I've been suggested to be the head of the Illuminati, a Scientologist, a demon, the Devil, and the Antichrist. All jokes, so I have no problems with most of them, whatsoever. However, the latter nicknames seem a little far-fetched, considering how I have no beliefs in the existence of neither God nor the Devil. It is a little difficult to be something when you do not believe in its existence, if you know what I mean. It is difficult to be a monk, for example, if you are not religious. I cannot be the antichrist if I do not believe in Jesus Christ. You know, you can't be against somebody if you do not believe in his existence, right. I mean, that'd be really weird and pretentious. Anyway, I've been called a lot of names, but I am OK with that. Then one of those names appeared in an article I was reading online, one written by a certain pastor for a local newspaper in Alaska. According to him, if it is indeed true that I am the Antichrist, then I could also very well be a homosexual, or someone who practices sodomy. That is a tall claim, because the last time I checked, I was still head over heels about women. Or, actually if he is right about the Antichrist, maybe I am really a woman stuck in a man's body. I am a lesbian, that is what he is saying.

First of all, this pastor started off the article by saying that the question of whether or not the Antichrist is a homosexual did not originate with him. Yet, it contradicts the rest of the article, choked with his researches and arguments against the act of homosexuality. Anyway, so he then went on to talk about how the word "homosexual" does not appear in the Bible, and that it is a modern word created to replace the word that the Bible used to condemn the act of homosexuality - sodomy. But if you really take half a minute to search in the dictionary, the word "sodomy" is still there, so I have no idea which dictionary he decided to go through while doing his research. Anyway, he then started quoting from the Bible and then trying to prove that God hated the homosexuals, or the people who practiced it anyway. The word "sodomy" came from a place called "Sodom", a place full of gay people. OK, I should be a little more accurate here, because the word "gay" and "homosexual" did not appear in the Bible. In the book, it was merely implied that boys were sticking their genitals into other boys with the words "lying with mankind as with womankind". It was implied that the boys were sleeping with the boys, and God wasn't very happy with that.

You noticed how, in the Bible, God spends quite a bit of time killing a lot of people. All the first-born died in Exodus, for reasons unknown, and he also made a lot of people die because he was pissed off. But, he was never physically present at the crime scene, because he always had evil henchmen to do his job. Like, locusts and fireballs falling from the skies, and stuff like that. But this time, He became so pissed off that boys were sticking genitals into other boys, He personally came down to Earth to kill these boy-loving boys. That is pretty damn serious in the real world, you know. Imagine if you are an intern working for Microsoft, and you make a mistake so big that Bill Gates flies down to fire you from your job - that's how serious it was. God physically came down, presumably on some kind of chariot with flaming wheels, and destroyed the town of Sodom, and killed everybody in there. It's no surprise that He did what He did anyway, because He doesn't seem to accommodate such things very often. You know, you piss Him off and He kills you. It's really unfair, considering the fact that none of us really have a fighting chance at all. He is a freakin' deity man, what are you supposed to do to fight against him - pray? To whom?

The pastor explains that there is no greater sin than to reject what God made you. So, he is trying to say that if God made you to be a man, then you do everything you are supposed to do as a man, and the same thing applies for women as well. Funny, how this just seems like a giant conspiracy to keep women oppressed somehow. It's not that I am a feminist or whatever, but it just sounds like something a bunch of men created to keep women in their places to wash their dirty laundry, or something. Anyway, to do anything but what a man should do was, to God, the greatest sin ever. He made you to be a woman-loving boy, so He expects you to be a woman-loving boy. To be a boy-loving boy, that wasn't He'd be very happy about that. Then again, people are always telling me to never consider the work of God in human contexts, because He is of a different league altogether. But here we have a human, the pastor, trying to interpret everything that God is saying in the Bible and taking everything literally - weird. Anyway, to be deviant is to be against God, according to him, and that is why God thought that it was right to kill them all. Well, obviously God didn't do a very good job because there are still gay people running around everywhere. So much for killing the people in Sodom, because that did not wipe out these sodomy-loving people either. Notice how they don't use the word "kill" or "murder" in the Bible. Always words like "punish" or "destroy". Euphemisms for the win.

At this point, the pastor has answered the question as to whether or not homos-, I mean, sodomy is a sin. Now, he tries to answer if the Antichrist is going to be a homosexual. Quoting from the Bible again, he says that "Neither shall he [Antichrist] regard... the desire of women..." So at this point, he is trying to make us believe that the Antichrist has no desire in women, and that makes him a homosexual. Now, wait just a minute here. If I am some evil dark lord whose sole purpose is to destroy God and take over the world, I think I have more important things than to deal with women. Seriously, I think women will not be very high on my priority list, especially not human women anyway. He based his accusation that the Antichrist is gay on that one single quote, and he seems to truly believe it to be right. He believes that men's attraction to women is the "glue for the bond of marriage" and "the propagation of a godly heritage". He keeps on saying that by defying what God made you to be, you are committing this hideous crime. But it's strange how it has never occurred to him that maybe, just maybe, God created them to be homosexuals. I think a lot of fundamentalists are so ready to disregard the idea of a gay-gene, and yet they are so willing to accept that God hates homosexuals - why?

The rest of the article is actually pretty amusing, as he begins to talk about the possibility of a gay leader, and how that man is going to be the Antichrist. When that happens, he claims, God is going to "descends from the clouds to fight against the armies of wickedness". The thought of that amuses me, for the image of it. Imagine a town full of happy homosexuals, and they are minding their own businesses. Some of their are doctors, lawyers, janitors, school teachers, a police officer, a pastor, etcetera. They are not harming anybody at all, and in fact they are actually people who are doing something to help the poor, to take care of the sick, to clean our streets, to keep us safe. Can you imagine the image of God coming down onto Earth to destroy these people just because they like members of the same sex? I can imagine God descending upon a Mardi Gras parade, and all the homosexuals dressed in glittering and shiny outfit would be staring upon God, who'd be at this time wearing some kind of shiny armor. I think the homosexuals would be quite excited to see that, especially when you have this deity coming through the clouds - such a grand and dramatic entrance. I cannot imagine the battle between God and the Gays, because that'd be so hilarious that it'd be worthy of some kind of Hollywood parody movie. The homosexuals would be fighting God with their dildos and their ray guns that shoot rainbows.

The fact of the matter is, if you are a pastor of a church, there are better things for you to ponder about than to plow your way through the Bible and trying to find validation in your own hate against the homosexuals. When you are doing in-depth research on why God hate homosexuals, you have an issue. There are more important things to care about in this world, more pressing issues than whether or not homosexuals should be eradicated from the face of this planet. Other than engaging in what many law in many countries would consider to be unnatural acts, they are not harming anybody in the process are they? They are not having sex while trying to rob a poor old lady, nor are they having sex while they are trying to burn the house down. They are doing something that we all do in the privacy of their homes, and I really don't see anything wrong with that. Persecute anybody who'd dare have sex in the public, go ahead and do that. But other than what they do in their private time, is there anything really wrong with homosexuals? If you are so bent on finding reasons that God is on your side, you have an issue.

God does not hate homosexuals, if he exists at all. At least in my mind, I was brought up to believe that he loves everyone, and that he is all about forgiveness. A lot of that is in contrary to all the killing in the Bible, but at least that is what He'd like us to think. I don't think killing a whole town of people is considered to be very fair, truth be told. If this is the kind of God that we are all supposed to be worshipping, I'd rather stab myself with a fork and then leap off a cliff while listening to the Jonas Brothers. The fact of the matter is, I think many human beings justify our own fears and hate by interpreting the "word of God" in their own ways. If you think that religion is ugly, the people that constitute the religions around the world can be even uglier. I do not agree with many teachings of God, so to speak. I do not like to be told by some invisible entity what to eat, when to do something, and whether or not I should be circumcised. The reason why a superior being would want my foreskin to be snipped off eludes me, but one thing is for sure: I will not tolerate a God who hates homosexuals. Or rather, I will not tolerate a person who thinks that God hates homosexuals. You have issues when you are meticulously pouring over ancient text and scriptures and trying to find reasons that God is on your side. It's stupid, and your church has the priorities upside down. What about the children who need education, or homelessness, or the aged. I think those are pretty important issues that the church should try to help out on. To ask questions like whether or not the Antichrist is gay, that's the dumbest thing I've read all day. I think that if people like that spend a fraction of the time spent on justifying their own hate for gays on actually helping people, the world would be a better place. Hell, eradicating a fraction of these bigots from our world is going to make the world a better place.