#this got prosey but make no mistake: im still very angry

[themauvesoul]

Honestly I was gonna type out a rant abt the same exact thing and u know what? I think I’m gonna finish it bc I’m also pissed. I also grew up in a Christian household. My parents went to church every Sunday and after the sermon they would quiz us so they knew we paid enough attention. I went to youth group until my sophomore year of high school. I’m also coincidentally an atheist, and also also coincidentally gay. And y’all, being an atheist in a religious household DOESNT FUCKING COMPARE to being in the closet. Here’s the goddamn difference:

Sometimes you go to church and hear about ppl who’s kids go to college and get “brainwashed by the left”, which is code for “is an atheist now and probably believes in gay rights”. Everyone always gets a little sad and offers to pray for the kid. Sometimes the pastor will do a sermon on atheists and the worst thing he ever calls them is misguided and ends it with a call to “save them”. My parents found out I was an atheist my senior year of high school, when my younger sister yelled SHE was an atheist in the middle of an argument and I said I was too so my parents would leave her alone. My mom told me I was going to hell and I told her that was fine. She made me come to church a couple times and has never mentioned it again.

Sometimes you go to church and the pastor has a sermon about the gays. He’ll stand up on the pulpit or the stage and call gay ppl anything from unnatural to misguided to monsters going to hell. Sometimes he’ll say all the gays should burn and the audience will cheer. Sometimes he’ll say they should “deny their attraction” and pitch that being gay is just gods punishment. You hear stories about people being sent to conversion therapy, about how conversion therapy can be anything from desperately trying to explain the gay away to outright torture. Sometimes you hear stories of people who’s parents beat them after they came out. Sometimes you hear about people put out on the street. Sometimes you hear about people getting killed. I’m still in the closet because I genuinely don’t know if my parents would kick me out or hurt me or both.

The difference is: I fell asleep in church because I didn’t care about it anymore. I felt pants shitting terror for hours because my dad picked me up for work and caught a glimpse of me wearing a rainbow bracelet. I didn’t tell my parents I left god because I didn’t want them to get mad. I haven’t come out because I don’t want to destroy my family just yet. I stopped going to youth group because I lied about having homework enough times my mom stopped asking me if I wanted to go, but I’m still scared to mention I was at a local queer film festival because what if they find out? The difference is: I have so many hang ups and problems and bones I can’t pick clean because of religion, and yet, the moment I lost my faith was when I had to listen to a sermon where a formerly gay man insisted his gayness was a punishment. The fucking difference is I always felt like I was an outsider among my family, but it didn’t scare me until I realized I was a lesbian. The pain I felt being an atheist with Christian parents is NOTHING compared to the panic I feel every time my dad walks in on me and my “best friend” sitting just a little too close on the basement couch.

Being an atheist with religious parents doesn’t hold a fucking candle to sitting in your grandparents living room, listening to your entire extended family nod and agree when your grandfather says gay people deserve death. There’s no “my life depends on keeping this secret”, and even if it does, it’s one thing to have to lie about believing in a religion. I’ve done it, and it’s so fucking easy to pretend to go through the motions. It’s another thing entirely to be constantly slapped in the face with the knowledge that your family hates people like you, and the straight and/or cis persona you’ve constructed is literally the only thing keeping you safe.

So basically, fuck you. Being an atheist surrounded by religious people isn’t NEARLY as isolating, depressing, or terrifying as being an lgbt+ person surrounded by homophobes and transphobes. Fuck.

man like. being lgbt kind of ruins time with relatives in a very specific way that cishets will never truly experience. like family time can be rough tm but theres a special brand of discomfort that lgbt people face and it’s kinda wild