Today is Spirit Day - sponsored by GLADD. Oh, we're Christians over here at Occasional Boredom, isn't being gay against our Christian religion? Wait, did you say Spirit Day is about BULLYING of gays? Not gay rights, just bullying of gays for being gay.
But Christians don't participate in bullying so why would we care?
I care because a bully labeled me as GAY in high school and taunted me relentlessly. WHAT you say? Not Rachel, she's straight as an arrow, married to a wonderful man and has 3 kids!
But it DID happen and it made me angry, resentful and very miserable. Much how I imagine someone who is really struggling with being gay might be feeling when they are taunted.
It all started in my freshman year of high school, 13 years old. I was sitting alone in the chorus class waiting for class to end. While staring out the window my eye caught a group of girls chatting, they were obviously old friends from middle school and I choked back a sob at missing my friends from Truth for Youth. She caught my eye and gave me a dirty look, then the whispering started. The next day I was labeled a "girl watcher". This same girl was also in my Foods 1 class and got another boy at her table to sing "I'm a girl watcher" to the tune of Wheel of Fortune - oh you don't remember that tune, it's here on You Tube if you want to refresh your memory. That boy also rode my bus!
See once you start the bullying and encourage others to do so, it takes on a life of it's own. That boy would sing that song every single day until I finally had enough and screamed at him that I'd have my brother beat him up if he ever did it again! He stopped.
By Christmas I had learned to ignore this girl and never look in her direction. Right before we left for the holiday's, the music teacher gathered us to say my tormentor was leaving because her father, a PASTOR, was being moved to another church. My jaw hit the floor. She was the child of a Christian!
Christian friends, I cannot say how badly you damage the reputation of Jesus Christ when your children behave cruelly towards others. Where do you think she learned that behavior? Did her parents sit at home and bash the gay lifestyle? Did they teach her to not LOVE others just as Christ loved first?
Wrong, wrong, wrong!
The Bible teaches LOVE your neighbor as yourself! That means love your GAY neighbor and I promise you, they will love and respect you in return.
In summary, I'm glad this happened to me. It's made me extremely tough but also very empathetic to other's for being different. My life has been surrounded by beautiful people who were not loved by society for being different and I know that God has gifted me with the ability to look past what society would label as strange. But then again, I'm the lucky one for putting such a spin on this. There are others who don't survive and commit suicide because they can't handle the emotional abuse. I'm here to tell you that demonstrating Christ's love is the most important thing you can do as a Christian.
Be kind people, be loving, you never know who's watching.
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