Three Lessons Along A Straight Gal's Journey

This is a letter written to me by Pat who recently joined our other TWC site - Two World Collision Collaborative Christian Community. That's a place for both gay and straight "Journey Christians" to walk with each other beyond the Side A/Side B/Side X framework.

Pat is a straight gal on a journey through this issue and she shares three lessons that she has learned for herself so far. She gave me permission to share her letter with everyone here. Thanks Pat!

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Hi there, I'll update my profile later, for now I'll introduce myself a little:

I am a Mexican Catholic straight girl who came to this whole hot zone discussion by complete accident: to make a long story short I stumbled upon Andrew Sullivan's blog, felt totally immersed by it and felt really curious that he was both Catholic and Gay (go figure, I didn't know that was possible) ... fast forward 40 days (I am a little obsessive person) and now I know about "reparative therapy" the damages of reparative therapy, the possible biological link to homosexuality, gay sheep, marriage laws in the states, anti-gay propaganda, gay parents, gay struggle, gay kids suicide rate, bible passages, etc.

Names that only yesterday meant nothing to me like "Nicolosi", "Alan Chambers" and "Jon Cameron" or "Mel White", "Boswell" and "Mychal Judge" ring bells for me now, whether for disapproval or approval.

I have become an avid reader of Box Turtle Bulletin, Warren Throckmorton, Gay Christian Network, Ex Gay Watch, The Marin Foundation and, of course, your blog.

Through this journey I have learned three things so far:

First Lesson: That we all as Christians have a VERY big obligation to the Truth. If the first commandment is to love, I would say that the second commandment is to restlessly pursue the truth, no matter where the truth takes us. We cannot get comfortable by "just knowing". When we don't actually know, we must investigate, look, knock, ask, call. Every truth comes from the Holy Spirit, and I dare say that no matter WHO says something (a church, a president, a reverend, a priest or even, gulp, the Pope), if we find out that what is being said is false, then that is not possibly coming from the Holy Spirit.

Second Lesson: I am convinced now that being gay is not a choice, and since it is not a choice, it cannot be (substantially at least) changed. And all our following judgments about the question should take that as a premise.

Third Lesson: A constant I have found with all the anti-gay propagandists is that they lie. I'm not talking about what they believe, I am talking about plain and simple ignorance or distortion of the facts. The bare facts. So that makes them really suspect in my book. The other thing is that they are usually very very spiteful people.

So that's it, I don't know where this journey will further take me, I know that I want to do something, but I don't know what exactly. So joining this network is a start, I guess.

Pray for me! And congratulations on your courage! (great web design by the way!)

love,

Pat.