Leaving the fold: Part 2

Confessions

One of the consequences of being taught that everyone in the world hates you is you start believing that everyone hates you (crazy,right?). Because that was my starting place for interactions with people, it became a self-fulfilling prophecy. I would treat people as deserving of unending torture, which understandably turned them off from wanting to be around me. Then I would claim I was being persocuted because no one wanted to spend time with the bigoted Christian kid.

The group of people I believe I hurt the most were the LGBT people I came into contact with. I actually told people, to their faces, that they were going to be tortured forever because of who they loved. Even worse, I was self-righteous about it, and told myself I was being “loving”. Bullshit. I was being the very worst sort of bigot.

That’s not to say I didn’t hurt other people, too. I was an equal opportunity bigot. I even told other Christians they should be concerned about their salvation because they didn’t believe the same things as me.

When I realized I no longer believed in God, I slowly started to examine things I’d taken for granted. It was slow because I’d been steeped in patriarchy and Christianity for so long, I actually could not see some of the places I was being awful. It took an awful shock to actually be able to see my own blind spots.

When I started college at UCCS, I was employed by the Scribe, the school newspaper. At this point I was calling myself an agnostic leaning toward atheism. I was still super naive. I met the managing editor of the Scribe, a wonderful woman named Cat. In one of our first conversations, it came up in passing she had a female partner. I was floored. I had never even considered the possibility I might work for an LGBT person. It was a huge relief when I realized it didn’t have to be an issue for me any more! It was like a great weight had been taken off my shoulders – there was absolutely no reason why I had to be freaked out or nervous when dealing with someone who was in a same-sex relationship. In fact, it actually made my interactions with everyone easier when I didn’t always have to think about that.

I had a choice once I discovered how many blind spots I really had. I could either wallow in guilt, or I could do something about it. I decided that wallowing in guilt was counter-productive, so I started to try to make up for my previous awfulness. In a lot of ways, I believe I have; however, I don’t believe I’ll ever completely make up for being so awful to so many people.

Today, I’m an LGBT Ally, a feminist, and what the Right sneeringly calls a “Social Justice Warrior”. I can’t say I agree with all LGBT allies, or all feminists, or all SJWs. But I do make the effort to listen to viewpoints different than mine, and respect those decisions and stances others take. My atheism has made me a better person.