What PRIDE means to me - Part 1

I believe in God.

I believe that God is truth; truth that is the non-tangible and mysterious element that binds us all together. I believe that truth is constant and absolute, but infinite and impossible to fully comprehend. Truth I envision as a sphere and that on every side of that sphere are all people. When you look at a sphere, you only see one point clearly. The points up, down, side to side are slightly distorted and the farther you go the less you can see until you can't see the rest at all. I believe this is where other people come in. If we share our perspective, then we get to understand better the clear view our neighbor has. The more we share, the more likely we are to have any idea what the other half of the sphere is like.

Here is where it gets screwed up. Some people are really great at communicating the truth they can see clearly. Those immediately around them often then stop trying to figure truth out and focus instead on the one talking. Instead of sharing our view of truth (really good), we get organized religion (neutral) where we share our view within a structure set up by the talker. This is helpful but dangerous. The farther out this goes, the more people can only see a very distorted picture of what the leader of the organized religion is talking about. This spreads and soon the talker has power, power over people who cannot dispute it because they are not even looking at truth to understand it.
From here we have a politicized religious establishment (very bad) who indirectly promote war, oppression, hate, fear and a myriad of other interpersonal issues such as sexual conformity.

I believe that homosexuality is an example of how God is creative, like how water can be a solid, a liquid and a gas. There are examples all through nature of non-conformity including gay animals. "Homosexuality has been observed in more than 1,500 species, and the phenomenon has been well described for 500 of them," said Petter Bockman, project coordinator of an exhibition at the Natural History Museum in Norway in 2006. I always loved giraffes as a child (tall and skinny as I was), they are reported to have more homosexual activity than heterosexual. I get so mad when people talk about sex as if its only for procreation (Although, with an average of 2.5 children in the US, if I only had sex 2 or 3 times over my lifetime I'd likely be just as a blindly vengeful). God made us for sex. Even fundamentalists cannot ignore the entire book of the Bible written as a sex poem, like a narrative kama sutra. I have Pride that my God designed me to have sex with a man, and much more than that, to build a life and a marriage with a man.

My faith growing up was a shell of religious beliefs handed to me to protect me from a frightening unknown world. My faith is now moved to my core. Though I have little shell left to protect me, I realize the world is designed to be lived in. I am no longer inherently afraid. Deep down, in the core of my being, I have Pride that my faith, my God, my truth will remain unshaken.