A copy of an email I recently sent to The Australian Christian Lobby in retaliation to their constant campaigning against the rights of the Queensland LGBTI community.
Dear Members of The Australian Christian Lobby
I understand your persistence in promoting Christian values, however I find that in the process of doing so, you are losing the message that you intended through promoting inequality. One thing we can all agree on is “Do to others as you would have them do to you.” While some believe that Christ came down to die for their sins and others believed he was just a man who felt inspired to break the control of an oppressive dictatorship and in the process tick of a few controlling religious fundamentalists, those words are values that all should live by.
At one point I was actively involved in the church and even spent time at a non-denominational bible school. I will not deny that I class this as one of the fondest periods in my life and to this day I still retain some close friendships that I had during this time. However like so often in life, things change and people go down different paths.
I believe marriage is about two people madly in love who want to publicly admit their commitment to each other in front of their friends, family and whoever else feels the privilege to share that beautiful moment in a couple’s life. I believe the Marriage Act under governmental law should be inclusive for all couples no matter what race, sexuality, faith one might have.
I’m not talking about semantics, I am talking about the secular legal term marriage eg. The Marriage Act, that is not owned by the church. All citizens should have the right to equal treatment under the law. It is not illegal for people to be a part of a same-sex relationship, and because of this they deserve all of the rights, responsibilities, and protections of a secular marriage.
While I believe the church has total control to as to whom they bestow the sacrament of holy matrimony, they do not have the right to control the secular legal construct. We were given the right of civil unions in Queensland yet it is widely publicised and even Campbell Newman himself virtually acknowledged The Australian Christian Lobby in the reasoning for taking state sanctioned ceremonies away from an act that wasn’t just for same-sex couples but also heterosexual ones as well. Then last week without proper “in depth” consultation from all members of the community, civil unions were changed to register of relationships.
I am not a dog, or car, I am a human being. This now brings me back to what I was saying above, “Do to others as you would have them do to you.” I’m sure you wouldn’t appreciate us treating your relationships in such a way, so why campaign to have ours treated this way. The Australian Christian Lobby also is about protecting the children. It seems to me the only children they are protecting are heterosexual ones.
Think of the emotional and physical damage the current government is inflicting on the LGBTI youth of Queensland. The message in schools is saying don’t bully, but our government says treat them differently. How is this upholding Jesus Christ’s most famous words “Do to others as you would have them do to you.”
It is so easy easy for a heterosexual to say that people are not born gay. I ask you this, when did you choose to be heterosexual? I have been gay my entire life, however due to an oppressive society I felt like I had to suppress who I was. It was at the age of 21 that I accepted who I was. Yes I had relationships with girls, but for me personally they just did not feel right. And I’ll be honest inside it was killing me. I never chose to be gay, the only decision I ever made was to be myself.
Yours sincerely Chad St. James.
An email that I sent to the Australian Christian Lobby.
Funny, I'm writing one as we speak.
Nice. Writing emails is funny 🙂
Joseph Power writing emails is fun
I'm going to exercise my troll, he hasn't been out in a while.
Is he a cuddly troll or an angry troll?
An irony troll.
Very nicely done Chad 🙂
My humble email:
Good afternoon, brothers and sisters,
Firstly, my deepest thanks for your tireless efforts against the homosexual and bi-sexual communities. It’s imperative as a decent, Christian society that these practices are not legalised, nor taught to our children in the public education curriculum.
I was recently re-reading my bible, and stumbled cross a couple of passages in Leviticus, and was asking for some clarification. Firstly, the two regarding homosexuality:
Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is an abomination.[3](Leviticus 18:22 KJV)
If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them.[4](Leviticus 20:13 KJV)
Now, that seems very cut and dry. But it’s some of the later passages that I found slightly worrying:
For example, I am a very well-groomed Christian gentleman, but this excerpt struck me as particularly worrying: Leviticus 19:27 reads “You shall not round off the side-growth of your heads nor harm the edges of your beard.”
Now, I have in the past received such hair-cuts, and I always ensure my facial hair is removed and I am clean-shaven, is this sinful behaviour?
Then, I came across this passage. I was intending to get a small tattoo of one of my favourite lines of scripture on my inner forearm, I’m unsure about how to interpret this: Leviticus 19:28 reads, “You shall not make any cuts in your body for the dead nor make any tattoo marks on yourselves: I am the Lord.”
Also, I have an uncle who was recently diagnosed with testicular cancer. He is a fine Christian man, but he recently informed me in confidence that he may have his testicles removed. I happened to stumble across this passage in my Religious Education class, and found it very very worrying: Deuteronomy 23:1 reads “A man whose testicles are crushed or whose penis is cut off may never join the assembly of the Lord.”. Does this mean my uncle can never join the church again if the worst happens?
Thank you for your time, thank you for fighting the good fight and keeping these disgusting sodomists in their place. God bless you.
Yours faithfully,
Joseph Power
Written an email also, lol. Glenn wrote one a couple of weeks ago with no response, so I am not going to get my hopes up. Well done Joseph ^^, brilliant. 😀
Ah yes but we can keep emailing praying that God shows them the error of their ways.
well said and inspirational.
Good letter but while we should have the ability to be civilly united it should depend on the individual church wether they want to grant marriage. Religion needs to be kept out of the state
Completely agree with you there.
Well said Chad
It might be helpful to know how churches affiliated with the ACL have actually organized for gays to go through electronic shock therapy to try to change them as the President of the Baptist Church did to me. (Same church that Wendy Francis attends). It didn’t work but it did prove medically I was born gay. Others arranged for gay teenagers to be chemically castrated and when that didn’t work, they excommunicated them & their parents put them out of their homes, changed the locks and said they never wanted to see them again.
The current written Baptist policy on gays practicing or not, are that they are forbidden to lead, teach, exercise any ministry or do any act of Christian service. Gays are told they are f..g.ts & p..ft.rs who are not welcome to even attend church, as I was told.
They often use Romans 1 in the Bible to condemn gays. But the WHOLE POINT of Rom 1 is Rom 2:1 which says “You therefore have no excuse, you who pass judgement on someone else”. It is never mentioned. We need to be very careful with any contact with the ACL. Wendy Francis will stop at nothing. The Baptist Church no longer forms any part of my life.
Joseph. You might like to ask ACL how they obey Lev 19:37 & 20:22 which says “Obey ALL my commandments and ALL my laws”. They might like to start with Lev 20:9 (4 verses away from 20:13) which says if anyone curses their father or their mother they must be put to death. Ask them every time their children throw a tantrum and curse either their father or their mother, how many of them have they killed lately, and if not why not? God clearly says they have to obey ALL the law.