homosexuality

Christian and Lesbian?

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One woman’s journey into faith and out of a sinful lifestyle


She Considered Herself a Christian & a Lesbian—Then She Was “Struck by Lightning” With a Stunning Realization

“I actually considered myself a Christian at that point, though I had no desire to read God’s Word, let alone conform my life to his will.”

emily

By Emily Thomas

The Girl in the Picture

Recently I came across the photo on the left and did a double take. The girl in that photo, with her hollow eyes and hopeless heart, no longer bears any resemblance to me. She was dead in her sin (Eph. 2:1). (To be clear, I amnotsaying everyone who looks like the girl on the left is dead in sin, or that everyone who looks like the girl on the right is not. Spiritual reality runs far deeper.)

I was always the type to push boundaries. Even as a child, I never really had a moderate pace. I tried everything once but most things at least twice for my own curiosity. Growing up in a small town, there wasn’t much to do, and I acted out often. In high school, I met my need for attention by constantly “going against the grain,” but in a way that maintained my popularity. I partied, slept around and by 15 I came out as a lesbian to some friends.

By the time I was a young adult, I fully embraced the LGBT label. I cut my hair short, wore boy clothes, and used men’s bathrooms and dressing rooms. I enjoyed the thrill of doing and being what was outside the norm—trying harder drugs, exploring even more taboo sexual acts and getting a couple of regrettable tattoos.

By 22, I had settled down a little. Shock value, though still something I enjoyed, was a lower priority. While still smoking weed and having sex with women, I maintained an outward appearance of morality. I considered myself a good person; I worked full-time, loved my friends and usually balanced my budget. Family relationships were improving, and I was finally attempting to lead a relatively respectable life.

Surprised by Attributes

In March 2014, a group of coworkers started a Bible study and invited me to join. Because my aunt was part of the group, I agreed to participate. I actually considered myself a Christian at that point, though I had no desire to read God’s Word, let alone conform my life to his will. I told myself that at the first mention of my “lifestyle” I’d quit the study, and I felt pretty confident that moment would come.

Thebook we studiedwas on the attributes of God. For the first time I was confronted by the justice, holiness and sovereignty of God. The more I read and understood, the bigger God became and the smaller I felt. I knew what the Bible said about homosexuality and other things, but I hadn’t cared before. I had little understanding of the God I was sinning against.

This study was slowly shifting my perspective. I would catch myself, just before falling asleep, questioning who I was and why I made these choices. I asked myself,Am I sure that gay behavior is as much of my identity as my gender or my race? But I’d wake up and laugh and say,Of course you can embrace your homosexuality—that’s who you are! It felt like I was almost convincing myself it was okay to continue on that way.

Two weeks later, a friend (also a lesbian) waited for me at my apartment after work to smoke marijuana and hang out as usual. After we smoked, I asked her, “What if they’re right?” She knew I was doing the study and understood immediately what I meant and said, “I don’t want to talk about it.” I pushed further. “We have to. If this is true, we need to talk now and not later.” She left soon after, so I picked up my book and read.

 
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Piers Ackerman- Vote Labor in haste, regret at your leisure

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Piers Akerman

 

SHOULD Labor leader Bill Shorten win office in 41 days, homosexual marriage will ­become a reality across Australia just 100 days later. 

This has nothing to do with fairness, equality, human rights or any other humbug the homosexual lobby and the Marxists lurking close behind their agenda may wish you to believe.

This is about Labor being pushed to the Left by the Greens, radically altering customary practice, dramatically changing the way children are reared by removing either a male or a female figure from the family unit, and setting the stage for a generation who will forever be robbed of a better shot at life.

For it is the demonstrably evident fact that children raised in stable heterosexual families will, on the best available statistics, be best equipped to deal with the world.

That, as unpalatable as it may seem to those homosexual couples (as sharing, caring and warm and loving as they may be) who have chosen to adopt or create children through IVF or surrogacy, is just how it is.

The consequences of adopting homosexual marriage are not benign. It is not just about having two little Ken dolls or two little Barbies in bridal wear on top of the wedding cake.

Those who would change the Marriage Act to redefine the traditional union of a man and a woman know they are merely stalking horses for massive societal change such as are already being experienced in the US, where, in a giant grab for exaggerated victimhood status, the homosexual and gender-confused lobby have now managed to have President Barack Obama force all state schools to permit children use whichever lavatory they feel fits their sexual orientation — not necessarily their biological and chromo-somal identity.

I doubt whether many young girls will feel pressing need to express their inner manliness by fronting the urinals or even entering the boys’ (should they still be labelled as such) loos, but I suspect there will be a rush of hormonally charged teenage boys anxious to entertain their inner sheila and barge into the lavatories and change rooms traditionally set aside for females.

The new anti-gender laws have already restricted freedom of speech, and they will here, too, as there has already been a ridiculous try-on in Tasmania mounted by transgender activist and Greens candidate Martine Delaney.

Delaney lodged a complaint against the Catholic Archbishop of Tasmania Julian Porteous over a church booklet which carried the unthreatening slogan “don’t mess with marriage” and made the case accepted universally for millennia that marriage should be a “heterosexual union between a man and a woman”. To change the law, it said, would endanger a child’s upbringing.

Earlier this month, Delaney withdrew the charge in the face of the Church’s obvious defence — that it was plainly false to assert there was nothing distinctive about a man and a woman, a father or a mother.

As much as Penny Wong and her partner may delight in calling themselves parents of the children who live with them, neither is a man, neither is a father and neither can provide the male presence under their roof that is the ideal in a true family.

Former Labor prime minister Paul Keating famously noted that “two blokes and a cocker spaniel” don’t make a family, and that was Labor’s view until a few years ago.

A more recent Labor PM, Julia Gillard, crossed the floor of the house and sat with then Opposition leader Tony Abb-ott, to vote down a Labor backbencher’s private member’s bill to amend the Marriage Act and permit homosexual couples to marry.

She wasn’t alone. Her treasurer, Wayne Swan, environment minister Tony Burke, trade minister Craig Emerson and former PM Kevin Rudd, joined her in voting down the motion 98-42.

Then the homosexual lobby arced up its campaign.

False statistics about the percentage of homosexuals in the community were flung about (internationally, the agreed number seems to be somewhat less than 2 per cent).

Claims that bullying of gender-muddled children forced some to at least contemplate suicide, if not carry through with their intention, were laid though no statistics bear this out and the statistic which seems most available would ­indicate that the primary focus of anxieties among those who do report bullying is to do with their body image or ethnicity.

This has not stopped those, like Victoria’s socialist Premier Daniel Andrews, or the members of the grotesquely misnamed Safe Schools Coalition, headquartered in the truly ­bizarre Australian Research Centre in Sex, Health and ­Society unit at La Trobe University, from supporting the teaching of such skills as “penis tucking” and “breast binding” to prepubescent children.

Shorten, should he be elected, won’t just redefine marriage, he’ll destroy it.

As lesbian Russian author Masha Gessen told the Sydney Writers Festival four years ago “fighting for gay marriage generally involves lying about what we are going to do with marriage when we get there”.

“Because we lie that the ­institution of marriage is not going to change. It’s going to change and it should change.”

Two months ago Labor senator Joe Bullock resigned as a matter of principle over Labor’s stance.

He said he couldn’t remain in a party which proposed to deny its members a conscience vote on the homosexual marriage question.

He made his decision after attending the Labor Party’s ­national conference and finding himself, to the best of his knowledge, the only one to vote against this proposition.

“How can I, in good conscience, recommend to people that they vote for a party which has determined to deny its parliamentarians a conscience vote on the homosexual marriage question? The simple ­answer is that I can’t,” he said.

Australians should ask themselves whether they want this radical change forced on their society when they vote on July 2.

 

Full article

Fishy Price Tag

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The Same Sex “marriage” plebiscite scares the activists because they are afraid they might lose and actually fear democracy as an institution. So it’s no surprise that they exaggerate the cost of voting in an attempt to pressure the Government to abandon the plebiscite.

From the Centre for Independent Studies:

Something fishy about PwC’s plebiscite price tag Peter Kurti 24 MARCH 2016 | IDEAS@THECENTRE

same sex marriage equality 1Former Prime Minister Tony Abbott promised to settle the marriage equality issue democratically by allowing voters to state their views in a national plebiscite later this year.

Malcolm Turnbull has committed to honour that promise — unless he is intimidated into silencing the Australian people, and scuppers the plebiscite plan altogether.

A new report from PricewaterhouseCoopers puts a price tag on each of the options for consulting the Australian people on the future of one of our society’s fundamental institutions.

Leaving it to the pollies is the cheapest option — $17 million according to PwC. And a stand-alone plebiscite with a compulsory vote on same-sex marriage is the most expensive at $525 million.

If it looks like fish and smells like fish, it probably is fish. And this report from PwC definitely has a fishy pong to it. Especially when you add in the estimated $20 million bill for mental health costs.

Scare tactics are being used by same-sex marriage advocates desperate to keep the issue well away from the voters. Suddenly a plebiscite is said to be a waste of time and money.

72% of Australians support marriage equality, according to Australian Marriage Equality’s website. But if that is true, why worry about letting Australians have their say?

It’s not to save money that the advocates want to shut down public debate about changing the meaning of marriage. It’s because they’re worried they might lose a plebiscite vote.

So rather than trust the integrity and decency of the Australian public, advocates would rather silence the people and leave it to the elites to stitch up a deal.

Democracy has a price well worth paying; in fact, it’s a price we must always be prepared to pay. Marriage equality advocates may well be on the side of the angels with justice on their side.

But unless they place their trust in the hands of the Australian voters and allow the people to decide on marriage equality, the advocates will never quite dispel the stench of a fishy fix-up.

What Is Wrong With This Picture?

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All you need to know about the terminal decline of Western culture is in this news item.

When a society so glorifies sexual licentiousness, the end is not far off.

Only a full-on move of God’s Spirit bringing people back to Him can save us from ourselves.

From the ABC:

Giant pink condom put onto Sydney’s Hyde Park obelisk to remind residents to have safe sex

Giant pink condom goes onto obelisk

In a move to promote safe sex, a New South Wales health promotion organisation has put a giant pink condom onto the obelisk at Sydney’s Hyde Park.

The 18-metre tall condom was put onto the heritage-listed structure on Friday night in the lead up to the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras, to be held next month, by lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) health promotion organisation ACON.

The organisation’s chief executive Nicolas Parkhill said the Mardi Gras was a good time to remind people that using condoms was one of the most effective ways to stop transmission of HIV.

“Every year around 80 per cent of HIV transmissions in NSW are among men who have sex with men, so it’s vital that we use opportunities like Mardi Gras to remind gay men about the health benefits of using condoms,” Mr Parkhill said.

“While new drugs are starting to provide other means of protection against HIV, condoms remain central to the fight against the virus because they remain one of the most cheap and effective ways of preventing the transmission of HIV and other sexually transmissible infections.”

He said the giant condom was first put up for World AIDS Day in 2014.

“It was a huge hit … so we thought we’d roll it out again for this year’s Mardi Gras to act as a highly visible safe sex reminder, not just for locals but also for the thousands of international visitors who come to Sydney for Mardi Gras.”

ACON also held a launch for its Stay Safe campaign at Bondi Beach today, as part of efforts to put an end to HIV transmissions in NSW by 2020.

The organisation gave away 1,000 pink inflatable rings, which they called “lifesavers” and described as “condom-like” to the public at the beach.

Established in 1985 as the AIDS Council of NSW, ACON works to end HIV transmission among gay and homosexually active men, and promote the lifelong health of LGBTI people and people with HIV.

It is funded by the NSW Government through the NSW Ministry of Health.

The obelisk was built in 1857 to vent Sydney’s first sewerage system and now provides ventilation for the city’s stormwater system.

Are LGBT suicides higher?

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You regularly hear the claim that homosexual people are more likely to suicide because they aren’t allowed to marry- a strange claim but there you have it. A variation on the theme is we can’t even have a vote on the issue because the poor petals can’t stand debate about whether we should redefine marriage. Are those claims valid?

Terri Kelleher investigates:

FAMILY AND SOCIETY 
Vulnerable GLBT youth pawns in plebiscite game


by Terri M. Kelleher

News Weekly, September 26, 2015

There is no research to show that legalising same-sex marriage would reduce the GLBT suicide rate. It would appear to be based on an ideological assumption rather than on hard evidence.

Like a pawn in a chess game

The current Senate Committee inquiry into a popular vote on same-sex marriage has heard stern warnings against holding a plebiscite or popular vote because it “could damage young gay people”. On ABC Radio’sAMon September 11, NSW Nationals MP Trevor Khan warned against exposing young gay people to the sort of public debate that would be caused by a plebiscite because their rate of suicide and self-harm was much higher than in the general population.[1]

Beyondblue ran a full-page advertisement inThe Australiannewspaper (Tuesday, September 1, page 8) claiming that GLBT people “take their own lives at much higher rates than heterosexual people” and that the current marriage law causes them “hurt, pain, mental illness and worse”.

Although no source was provided for actual GLBT suicide figures, it is deeply concerning that GLBT people experience a higher rate of attempted suicide and suicide ideation than does the general population.

It raises the question: have countries that have legislated same-sex marriage show a reduction in attempted suicide rates for GLBT people?

Denmark legislated for Registered Partnerships in 1989, yet as a 2011 Danish study (Mathy, R.M. et al.) found that suicide risk seemed to be greatly elevated for Danish men in same-sex partnerships.[2]

In the Netherlands, where same-sex marriage was legislated in 2001, almost 64 per cent of LGBT 18–24-year-olds surveyed in 2009 still reported thinking about suicide and almost 13 per cent of them attempted suicide, higher than for their heterosexual peers (Bergen et al., 2013).[3]Legislating same-sex marriage does not appear to have reduced the rate of suicide attempts or suicidal ideation for GLBT young people in the Netherlands.

In Australia there are again no actual figures to show whether the suicide rate in GLBT people is higher than the rate in the population over all. However, of the 5,966 suicide cases examined in a 2014 Queensland study (Skerrett et al., 2014), only 0.58 per cent, or 35 people, were identified as GLBT. The more important finding was that two-thirds of the LGBT subjects had relationship problems with partners, compared with only one-third of the non-GLBT subjects.[4]

 

Full article

Diversity or Uniformity

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Tolerance is so 20th Century. We now demand total conformity.

From Australian Family Association

They don’t want diversity, they want to impose complete conformity

There were howls of protest from the same-sex marriage lobby when Sydney’s Daily Telegraph recently reported parents objecting to a documentary on gay families being compulsory viewing in a Sydney high school.

Senator Penny Wong tweeted that this was “bullying”, automatically classing as bullies parents wanting to teach a different value system to the same-sex marriage lobby.

Fairfax media’s Brisbane writer, Rebecca Shaw, who describes herself as a well-adjusted lesbian in her 30s, wrote an article saying, “I won’t accept your ‘tolerance’” and demanded “complete acceptance” (The Age, August 30, 2015)

Effectively, Shaw demands that all those who believe in man+woman marriage must now abandon their beliefs and accept the view that marriage is between any two people with any combination of numerous sexual orientations and sexual identities.

If the same-sex marriage lobby can make such demands on everyone, then why can’t the Labor Party demand that all Liberals must abandon the values that make them Liberals and must embrace only Labor values?

Why can’t anti-religious secularists demand that Muslims, Jews, Christians, Buddhists – all people who hold religious beliefs – “completely abandon” their beliefs and “completely accept” secular beliefs?

Rebecca Shaw’s demand for complete acceptance is a demand for complete uniformity of beliefs to create a homogenised society.

Complete acceptance of one value system destroys diversity and creates uniformity. It is authoritarianism.

Has the same-sex marriage lobby lost its pride in diversity?

The ground rule for a liberal democracy is tolerance of another person whose views differ to yours.

You can disagree with your neighbour’s values but tolerate your neighbour who believes them. You can disagree with your neighbour’s lifestyle without inflicting vitriolic abuse, hatred, bullying, denigration and threats of legal action.

This is most clearly demonstrated by civil debate between opposing groups.

The demand for “complete acceptance”, not just for same-sex marriage but also for the sexual orientation and gender identity (SOGI) into anti-discrimination law, is itself “intolerant”.

“Complete acceptance” abandons diversity for universal conformity.

If realised, this demand moves society from a liberal democracy to an authoritarian state where only one belief system is promoted by government and the institutions that make up the state.

When democracies cease to be tolerant, they can quickly become tyrannical.

By Patrick J. Byrne (Patrick is a regular contributor to News Weekly magazine, and Vice-President of the National Civic Council)

More Hypocrisy on the Left

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tolerance

Most reasonable people would think that school is no place to be showing gay “marriage” propaganda films.

So when the Education Minister bans the showing of the film “Gaby Baby” during school time, the usual suspects come out saying how this increases intolerance.

Really? The absence of a pro-gay film actually reduces people’s tendency to “live and let live” in regard to homosexual relationships? Can we expect a spike in gay-bashing next week because public schools aren’t allowed to show in class time one particular video this week?

Tolerance seems to be one of those code words that in an Orwellian fashion has been twisted to mean the opposite of its original meaning. It seems that it now means a compulsory celebration of something that one might disagree with but is not allowed to express opposition to.

What a strange and sad world we now live in.

Child of Lesbian Parents Opposes Gay “Marriage”

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From the ABC:

Ask the Bigot: Who is Katy Faust and why is the daughter of lesbian parents against gay marriage?

 American Katy Faust was raised by her lesbian mother and her partner and she now runs a blog called asktheBigot, which is fiercely opposed to gay marriage.

She became a Christian in high school and was concerned by the plight of children.

She is in Canberra to lobby the Federal Government against gay marriage and she told Lateline why. (Click here to view video)

These are her key points:

1. She loves her lesbian mother and her partner:

“While my mother was a fantastic mother and most of what I do well as a mother myself I do because that’s how she parented me, she can’t be a father. Her partner, an incredible woman — both of these women have my heart — cannot be a father either.”

2. She says children of gay parents pressured into supporting them:

“There’s several children that have contacted me even since I started writing about this, saying ‘I agree with you, but I’ll never come out and speak about this publicly because my relationship with my parent is too tenuous’.”

3. When she became Christian she struggled with Bible’s teachings on sexuality:

“Because there’s a fierce protectiveness I think that all children have for their parents, but what I was delighted to find when I read Scripture is that God has an incredible heart for the orphan and that he’s very concerned with the plight of children.”

4. She says children should not have to fit into parents’ ‘lifestyles’:

“Children have rights … the onus needs to be on adults to conform to the rights of children rather than children fitting into an adult’s lifestyle. And certainly, I don’t think that homosexuals are responsible by any means for the crisis that we face in America when it comes to family structure these days. Absolutely, heterosexuals have led the way on that charge.”

5. Her blog was originally anonymous but she was outed by a gay blogger:

“I wouldn’t be having this interview with you today, because I never intended to be involved in the legal fight, but because I was outed in the name of love and tolerance, I am talking with you today.”

Lyle Shelton honours the one man in Labor who stands for truth

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From Lyle Shelton: “Our political class has fallen victim to a culture that has lost its capacity to reason.

How a decision to sit was the biggest stand for truth at Labor’s conference

Joe_de_Bruyn1

Labor’s 47th National Conference in Melbourne at the weekend marked the party’s end of tolerance for the natural family as the gold standard for children.

It’s been a slow burn but it is now official. The party’s capitulation to the sexual revolution and Greens’ social policy is complete.

After 2019, any Labor parliamentarian who votes to support marriage as one man and one woman will be automatically expelled from the party.

There is now no room in the party for an aspiring candidate for office who wishes to uphold the definition of marriage that is in the best interest of a child.

As Labor’s president Mark Butler put the motion, the ‘ayes’ were loud and proud.

“All those against?” A solitary “no” which sounded like WA Senator Joe Bullock rang out. I was sitting up in the bleachers so it was hard to tell for sure.

Earlier as Penny Wong, Labor’s lesbian Senate leader, rose to speak she was greeted with a sustained standing ovation.

One man, the former head of the Australia’s largest trade union, Joe de Bruyn, could not bring himself to genuflect before the rainbow regime.

It takes courage not to go with the crowd. It takes even greater courage to do this when the crowd are the people of the party for whom you have given your life.

Someone with an iPhone snapped Joe and put him on Twitter. His decision not to bow was ridiculed with almost 200 re-tweets.

What the mockers will never understand is how much courage that took.

Earlier in the conference, Labor voted to make it their policy to support access to assisted reproductive technology for same-sex attracted people.

Watch now for Australia’s prohibition on commercial surrogacy to begin to be chipped at.

There was no debate about the ethics of denying children their natural mother or father, a necessary by-product of ART.

The irony of all this was hearing on the radio on the drive to work this morning the victims of the forced adoption practices of the 1950s-1970s telling heart-wrenching stories of removal.

Do we seriously think a boy growing up with lesbians will never have an ache in his heart for his dad?

I see how my kids love and relate to their mother. There is a maternal bond that two men cannot fulfil no matter how much the law tries to pretend otherwise.

The Greens and Labor talk a lot about the natural environment for birds and plants.  Labor’s conference said nothing about the natural environment for a baby.

And if you think I am being partisan, I am not. It is a Liberal, Warren Entsch, who is leading the charge to abolish husband and wife from the Marriage Act when Parliament resumes in August.

Our political class has fallen victim to a culture that has lost its capacity to reason.

Labor Leadership holds the rainbow flag

Yes, it is a sad day to see the alternative party of government vote to expel anyone who wants to support marriage as the best environment for a child.

But we must use this seminal moment in Australian politics to wake ourselves up and resolve to re-build a marriage culture.

Doing this will require speaking. It will require challenging the assumptions of our friends who have put a rainbow wash through their Facebook profile.

Ideas have consequences. If bad ideas are the only ones prosecuted in the public square, as was the case at Labor’s conference, then we should not be surprised if viral ideas take root in our culture.

Truth always resonates with ordinary people but it can only resonate if it is spoken.

By remaining in his seat, Joe de Bruyn stood for truth.

We all need to take a leaf out of his book.

Too Many Christians, Not Enough Lions”

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If you thought the same sex “marriage” push is all about love and tolerance, then this may change your mind.

From Life Site News:

 

Pro-gay activists react to gay ‘marriage’ resistance: ‘Too many Christians, not enough lions’

Christianity,Homosexuality,Media Bias,Sally Kohn,Same-Sex ‘Marriage’

July 14, 2015 (LifeSiteNews) — There has been no shortage of anti-Christian rhetoric from various media outlets in the fallout from the Supreme Court decision decreeing homosexual “marriage” across the country.

“Too many Christians, not enough lions,” a derisive reference capitalizing on the Christians martyred in ancient Rome, was also how one LGBT activist responded to Catholic Vote’s (CV) pro-marriage “Not Alone”video, according to CV President Brian Burch.

Released the day of theObergefell v. Hodgesdecision, the CV video logged more than 1.3 million views in the first 10 days.

“Seeing the power of our message, LGBT activists have now mounted a massive campaign to mock, ridicule, and shame us,” Burch wrote to supporters. “They have used every curse word (and more) to attack us personally. They threatened our staff with phone calls. And now some are openly calling for the persecution of Christians.”

Defaming of Christians, and Christ,continuedover atThe Huffington Post, where a column by Jules Suzdaltsev titled “Was Jesus Gay?” was picked up July 8.

“After the Supreme Court’s historic ruling on gay marriage,” the column began, “it seemed like all the proudly homophobic Christians came out of the woodwork to talk about how much they still hate gay people.”

“As a straight Jew, the homophobia amongst Jesus’s followers has always struck me as a bit of a surprise,” Suzdaltsev wrote. “Worshipping at the feet of a ripped, hung man, seems at least a little homoerotic.”

The piece went on to make derogatory comments about the crucified Lord and conservatives.

The original July 6articlecame from the websiteVice, where the author interviewed openly homosexual pastor Bob Shore-Goss, first asking whether Shore-Goss thought Jesus Christ was gay.

“I would hope he is. I would project that he is,” Shore-Goss responded. “For my own spirituality, I would love to jump into bed with Jesus. At the very least, Jesus was queer.” 

The piece then endeavoured to present biblical evidence of Jesus’s homosexuality, including asserting that St. Paul was a closeted homosexual.

Read the fill article here