LGBTQ+

I say this out of love and a shared experience so 🐻 with me:

1. Start taking school immensely seriously. Literally live to get all your homework and assignments done on time and done well.

2. Start really focusing on future goals and plans. Short mindedness will turn into long term depression and stagnation.

3. Start going to your college counselor at school and trying to figure out what you’re good at plus what makes money.

4. Stop worrying about dating. The idea of finding a highschool sweetheart is basically almost fantasy. Statistically speaking, you will not talk to, remember the names of, or miss the majority of people you spent time with in high school.

5. College is a great place to make connections and start over. Look to college as something to strive towards. I cannot stress this enough: pick a major that makes money or has a very flexible way to fit into different jobs.

About me: I got my bachelors in veterinary science and worked with animals in research, and once I had experience I could start applying to jobs that made more money using the skills I gained from research. I am bisexual and grew up in a baptist church and am gay married for 4 years. No one in my family knows. They think I live with a roommate who works with me. It’s not worth diving into a depressive attitude over things you can’t control; your goal should be to make your life better in spite of those things you can’t control.

I hear you!

There's a good exception to that rule though, the satanic temple (https://thesatanictemple.com/)! They're doing wonders using religion to push actual good values, they're mission is rather nice:

"The Mission Of The Satanic Temple Is To Encourage Benevolence And Empathy, Reject Tyrannical Authority, Advocate Practical Common Sense, Oppose Injustice, And Undertake Noble Pursuits."

Homosexuality isn't immoral there.. just conisder the huge banner right in the middle of their site. :)

They're a nice counter weight to the "regular" religions really.

Christian Logic:

1. All-knowing, all-powerful God, all-good God creates humans.
2. Since he knows everything, he'll know if someone turns out to be gay
3. He creates them anyway
4. He sends them to hell for it
5. But they could totally get redemption if they become something other than how they were made, and only commit the Christian-allowable sins (like divorce and greed), but not the icky homosexual one

I hear that loud and clear. I was so amazed when a gay friend of mine became catholic because his boyfriend was. I was like "WTF, this should totally be the other way around. What do Catholics have to offer homosexuals??"

If I had to go to bible study, I would probably ask everybody to cite every reference. I'd probably buy a hard copy of the skeptics annotated bible.

Stay strong, I'm a queer former-catholic, and it gets better as you get older.

Studying the Bible is always a hilarious way to spend time, especially when you take a REALLLY good look at the part about man laying with another man. It seems it may have been edited well after the fact. I had recently heard something similar about the original hebrew word being that a man shall not lay with a boy, which if true would be more about outlawing pedophilia, but I haven't looked it up myself so I cannot verify the validity.

100% - I didn't realise I was bi for the longest time because of Catholicism. It gets better once you're away from it all

I'm pretty sure in the same section of the bible where it says the man shall not lay with another man thing (Leviticus), it also says you shouldn't wear mixed fabrics or eat shellfish...so if your parents shop at Walmart or enjoy Red Lobster, they are just as immoral as you are

I'm so sorry you have to deal with that. It's not easy living in an environment when you don't feel like you're accepted unconditionally.

Just remember that there is nothing wrong with you whatsoever.

Maybe you need a new god. Have you considered Apollo? Eros? I can highly recommend Hermes myself. Here's some... shit, we don't make literature. But you can find some stories in the library.

All joking aside (about the pamphletts, I'm serious about the gods), you shouldn't have to put up with that bullshit. Not everyone is Catholic or even Christian anymore, though. There's people and communities and yes gods out there that don't see you that way.

Just tell them that God made gay people so they could marry and adopt orphans and babies who otherwise would have been aborted. See how that flies.

The funny thing is, if you study the history of various religions throughout history, is that when religions have these dogmas they have them to their own detriment. People often have a place or even need for metaphysics and spirituality but reject religions because they have an "all or nothing" approach to them, at least officially.

That said, many people accept their religious texts to be metaphorical and not literal, so even though there's homophobia in Abraham's texts for example, they go "yeah, but that's the characters of the story expressing their homophobia, not the book telling me to be homophobic".

Sorry this was a bit rambling but I genuinely find it sad that religious institutions of the modern era are so thoroughly out of touch yet also seemingly impossible to dismantle, even though at one point many of these religions were subversive, persecuted, and radical and they dismantled previous religions.

Well. I guess I have you good advice a few days ago. Hope you're safe.

I'd suggest laying low until you graduate. Only date same sex in private.

Once you move out for college, your parents can't control you.