Take a Look at What Gay Individuals Experience Before Pointing a Finger at Who Is Sinning

Perri Camella

pc458911@ohio.edu

After reading an article by Dr. Marty Klein, which brilliantly addresses the collision between religion and sexuality, I began to that think about all of the ridicule that the gay community receives and have received in the past. It made me wonder—how could anyone possibly point a finger at the gay community for sinning when they’re the ones bullying and acting like monsters towards these individuals? 

 

Photo by abc.net

Bullying

According to an article by bullyingstatistics.org, gay, gay and lesbian teens are two to three times more likely to commit teen suicide than other youths and about 30 percent of all completed suicides have been related to sexual identity crisis. Students who also fall into the gay, bisexual, lesbian or transgendered identity groups report being five times as more likely to miss school because they feel unsafe after being bullied due to their sexual orientation. About 28 percent out of those groups feel forced to drop out of school altogether.

Homelessness

A recent article by the Rolling Stones raised attention about how homeless gay teen numbers are increasing. The article told the story of a sorority girl who came out to her sorority sisters and parents about being gay and was then shunned by her family. Her phone was shut off, her cards were shut off, her car was dropped off at a location for her to pick up, and her parents refused to pay for her things or talk to her. As a college student, she had nowhere to turn to; she was abandoned by her family for loving a person who was the same gender as her.

Punishment by Religion

This article takes a look into the life of Parvez Sharma, who is an openly gay Muslim. In Saudi Arabia, it’s illegal to be gay and it certainly does not coincide with the Islamic religion. He talks about how his mother will not forgive him for being gay and his religion will not accept him, even though he is legally and happily married to his husband and living in the United States. His movie, called A Sinner in Mecca was released this past September, which includes footage that he filmed while making his pilgrimage to Islam’s most sacred sites. 

  

Time and time again, we have seen the gay’s get bullied, now live homeless, and receive punishment by religion. Religious texts and ideals were written and compiled by individuals who lived between 1,200 B.C.E. and 800 C.E., according to Klein’s article. People are still so wrapped up in these ideas, but how can we relate to a text that was written thousands of years ago? How could the people who wrote these texts have anticipated that our world would evolve into a society with technology beyond their wildest dreams—a world where people live to be 90 years old, people live in an environment aside from a farm, and mixed races interact on a day-to-day basis? These things weren’t common in 800 C.E, therefore, in my opinion, religious texts must be taken with a grain of salt. Just like people adapt to their environment and the changing world around them, these religious ideas must change too.

Loving someone who is the same gender as you are is not an epidemic; the epidemic is the barbaric treatment that individuals receive for being gay because of their religion. It’s not people’s sexuality that must change, it’s our perception.