I'm Sorry
Saturday, February 28th, 2009
I write a lot about how religion has hurt me. What I haven’t ever said is that I have used religion to hurt other people. Never on purpose, but it did happen. The time that stands out the most to me is the time I said something rather careless to a guy I had just met.
It was my first week of college my freshman year at the conservative college I attended. There was a drama group I decided to try out for, and mentioned it to my new friends.
It wasn’t just my friends sitting there. A few other people I didn’t know very well had joined the group. When I said I was excited about this group because I loved to act, one of the guys I didn’t know very well piped in.
“Oh, I can out-act you, honey, any day of the week! I can act happy, I can act mad, I can act serious, I can act funny, I can act gay, I can act straight. . .”
I felt rather annoyed–after all, he had never even seen my acting skills! How did he know he could out-act me? So I said, “If you only act gay and you only act straight, which are you?”
I meant it jokingly, and it was not funny to me, even then (and now it is incredibly embarrassing to write). I immediately regretted saying it because it sounded so stupid. But when I saw the look on his face, I regretted saying it for entirely different reasons. He withdrew immediately and didn’t say another word for quite awhile. Later, I learned that the entire school teased him both to his face and behind his back about acting gay. I felt horrible and have regretted that offhand comment ever since. I don’t even know if he would remember it, but when I learned about two years ago that he did come out of the closet, I felt even worse. I never meant to tease him about it. And really, that flippant comment was not cool, whether I meant it jokingly or not. I would never say that now.
It’s hard to know the pain the culture you embrace causes if you’ve never been outside of it. I am aghast at what I said then, and at other times. You don’t realize how what you say comes across. Something that you meant innocently could be devastating for someone else. In this particular case, the homophobia was so rampant in the conservative Christian subculture around me that I had no idea that I could sound bigoted myself. Overall, in my attempts to be a good Christian, I can’t tell you how many times I put the Bible before the person–I shut them out with mini sermons and Bible verses and thought I was wonderful for doing so. “Hating the sin, loving the sinner” is a terrible motto, because when we think it, we see the person through a filter of “sin.” It’s not just for the GLBT community, either–anyone who struggles with anything or looks like anything that is outside of the mainstream, Christian culture is viewed that way. Christians often define people by their pain or weakness. (And if this is anyone’s first time on my blog, know that I in no way view homosexuality as a sin–this was many years ago, and I no longer identify myself as a Christian.)
Steve told me last night that the guy I unintentionally insulted was later asked to leave the college. I had no idea. It makes me both angry and sad that people can be so blind to others’ pain. By the time I graduated, I knew that he must have struggled very much throughout his time there. If I ever saw him again, I would want to apologize. I still feel guilty to this day.
Tags: apology, Christianity, gay, homophobia, homosexual, regret, religion
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February 28th, 2009 at 3:18 pm
Great blog and hope to have some time soon to come back and read more!
March 1st, 2009 at 1:46 pm
Hey I love this blog. I can see the time and effort put into this.. Thanks!
March 3rd, 2009 at 4:58 pm
You have a very sensitive spirit, Lauradee.
Gay, and lesbian people have been so hurt by religion, and just by the impact of our homophobic culture in general.
None of us can completely undo the past. From my perspective as a Christian, I think I can only rest in the unconditional grace, and mercy of God, and go on to do the most life giving things in the future.
March 7th, 2009 at 7:13 pm
It isn’t hard to hurt people. We all have feeling, some people are just better at hiding themselves than others – they don’t show their feelings – and some aren’t quite honest enough or comfortable enough to let their inner selves be readable by those around them. It’s those who are hiding, dishonestly misrepresenting themselves, who get hurt most often.
You’ve made a public confession here, but you really didn’t have to. The guy you feel you’ve hurt was much more to blame than you. Forgive yourself. You were both living in a world that caused you to be how you were.
Thanks for this well written blog.
January 14th, 2010 at 1:14 am
Huh. I grew up in a culture (especially in my teens) that was very accepting of gay people–a couple of the guys in my class were gay and no one ever gave them any grief over it or anything, and one of them was class president for two years. But what strikes me is that you feel so guilty over saying something that wouldn’t even come across to me as insulting if I heard someone say those words. I would just think of it as lighthearted teasing. But perhaps that’s because in my environment, being gay didn’t have a stigma attached to it–so you wouldn’t assume by default it was meant as an insult.
January 23rd, 2010 at 5:46 pm
I remember two things I said when I was younger that I still blush about to this day.
In my first high school, which was small and brutal and I hated it, I tended to stick up for the outcasts, of which there was about four. I felt that I was the “most normal,” so I took it upon myself to defend them. Sandy was one of the most socially awkward girls I had ever met, and she even annoyed me on occasion, although I never attacked her. She was very much like Napolean Dynamite, which is interesting considering the town wasn’t far from where that movie took place.
In home ec, one day, Sandy, was being taunted for being too skinny, which I find funny considering the same girls taunted me for being too fat, but whatever. Sarah, one of the more benign of the popular girls, came up to me and completely innocently asked me what type of music I liked to listen to. It was actually the first person question any of the popular kids had ever bothered to ask me. Instead of naming any examples, I snapped, “Nothing that you like!” and stormed off. I did find her on facebook and we became friends. I don’t remember if I ever apologized for that. She certainly doesn’t remember it. It’s funny when the things we say to hurt others end up hurting us more.
The other comment I had made happened around the same time, when I was still under my father’s influence (no racial mixing, gays are evil, liberals are worse). I don’t remember saying this, but my mother claims that I did. I apparently told her, with a straight face, that I hoped there would never be a cure for aids, because then people would think it was okay to be gay. I tear up at the thought of me believing something like that, let alone actually saying it! I’m glad that my mother loves me, and allowed me to grow out of the malicious phase of my life before judging my true nature.