Editor:

Thanks so much for this great magazine. I’m a Christian, though heterosexual, but my cousin is a lesbian and I think it was a divine email that I just happened to get your newsletter. I’ve been looking for some way to introduce her to a relationship with God and get her into the Bible and your articles and jokes is just the best all around package I could’ve asked for!

I sent her the link and am praying that she starts investigating there. She’s a seeker, a former Catholic. I am too. And I am often sickened by so called “Christians” who don’t seem to have an ounce of love in their heart. Jesus must’ve felt the same way when He encountered those people. But how he kept from smackin’ ’em dead with a bolt of lightening from His fingertip is beyond me. Thanks again.

I’ll be praying for your ministry.

Lyn

Editor:

This was my first visit to your website. Very inspirational and helpful. Looking forward to many visits in the future. I grew up with condemnation, it is so good to see someone is spreading the good news.

God Bless, Frank

Andy writes: 

Greetings from Montana,

Would you agree with me, when I say, that we are living in a “sex crazed world?”

Editor Candace Chellew responds: No, Andy. I honestly don’t agree. I believe that this time in history is probably the most publicly sexualized, using sex to sell everything from dog food to toothpaste, but I would not call it a “sex-crazed world.” If anything, it’s a sexually repressed world where our sexuality gets played out in odd ways, like using sex to sell things from dog food to toothpaste.

I’m seventy years plus, a straight male.. :). When I was growing up in Portland, Oregon, the whole matter of sex was a private matter. We did not have all of the stuff that we are now inundated with. In just one area of our lives, TV, for instance. What do we have is, sitcoms that look at families as some sort of disjointed arrangements, that have no real purpose. People like Dr. Ruth, Jay Leno and his talk show friends. There are shows, that supposedly are entertaining us, with men and women thrashing around in bed doing their thing. And the story goes on and on. How do we raise our children in this type of environment?

Candace: By not letting them watch TV, perhaps? I agree television has become a vast wasteland and it had such great potential to not be that way. But, somewhere along the line, intelligent, thoughtful and in-depth shows got pushed to public TV that can hardly afford to pay the bills and mainstream TV is left with multi-billion dollar earners like Joe Millionaire. Go figure, is all I can say.

I would like to point out, however, that the large majority of the thrashing around you see on television is heterosexual thrashing. They still won’t allow the homosexuals to thrash about in quite the same way they allow the heterosexuals to do. So, honestly, you have no one to blame for the state of television today than the heterosexual producers who put that smut on the screen in the first place.

I read your article about the Christian Coalition and the American Family Association. I do not agree with your assessment of those groups. I can’t believe that they are motivated by hate. I sense that they are motivated by Jesus and their understanding that there is healing for the souls that are trapped in the gay lifestyle.

Candace: Then you haven’t really read their sites very closely. What the CC and AFA do is dehumanize a large minority population by spreading intentional lies about our “lifestyle.”

Well, you see, right there you’ve bought into one of their most hateful and insidious words — “lifestyle.” Let me ask you honestly, what do you think the “gay lifestyle” is? Do you think it’s about sex? Or maybe it’s about good fashion sense, the ability to decorate or do hair. Or, in a gay woman’s lifestyle, maybe it’s about having a bunch of cats, liking the Indigo girls, playing softball, and shopping for the latest plaid flannel shirt.

You see, the religious right has stereotyped gays and lesbians to the point of scary charicatures. This is how they spread their hate. It’s easy to hate a hyped-up, sex-crazed gay or lesbian person who is after your small child than it is to hate a hard working, taxpaying gay or lesbian who is simply trying to put food on the table for their families (which often include small children) by working at 40 hour a week jobs and driving a slightly used Honda day in and day out.

You see, this is the “lifestyle” of most gays and lesbians today. We work, we play, we like to go home and be with our families. We raise our children to respect others, to love God and to be kind to animals. We teach our children that others may not share our views, but that is no reason to hate them, put them down, or criticize their “lifestyle.”

But, these are the gays and lesbians that the CC and AFA don’t want you to hear about. These are the very real human beings, making their way in the world as best they can (since they cannot find equal rights for their relationships), doing their part to make America the great nation that it is (by serving in the military with distinction — although hidden — or working hard to pay our fair share of taxes). No, the religious right doesn’t want you to see this hard working gay or lesbian American, because then you might realize that we’re really a lot like you are — overworked and underpaid — simply trying to make the best of what the world gives them.

The other hateful and insidious lie that you have picked up from your buddies on the religious right is the idea that gays and lesbians are somehow “trapped” in this “lifestyle.” Nothing could be further from the truth. If a homosexual feels “trapped” it’s usually because they have bought the religious right’s lie that God hates them — or that God won’t really love them until they “come out” of that “lifestyle.” If a gay or lesbian truly understands the unconditional love that God has for them, and that the Bible has been misinterpreted and used as a weapon of oppression against them, then their feeling of being “trapped” usually dissipates pretty quickly. They begin to see clearly the lies of the religious right are what keeps them “trapped” — not their God given sexual orientation.

Although, there are some days, when I’m stuck in traffic or wishing to be on the beach, that I do feel kind of “trapped” in my “lifestyle.” I’m hoping one day to win the lottery so I can free myself from this stifling middle class “lifestyle” and maybe buy an island with a nice beach all to myself. Since, you see, it is money that drives my lifestyle, not my sexual orientation. I suspect the same is true of you and everyone else breathing air today.

I have had several instances of gay men trying to, for lack of a better description, trying to put the make on me. To me, that is disgusting and has left a mark on me that is hard to forgive and forget.

Candace: I’m not sure what you need to forgive about such a situation. If someone (male or female) makes a pass at you, one simply says “thank you, but no thank you” and thinks nothing more of it. I have straight male friends who are quite flattered when a man makes a pass at them. They take it as a compliment that they are attractive. They turn the other man down with a “no thanks” and that’s the end of it. They are not disgusted by the pass because they are secure in their sexual orientation. They have no need to be offended or disgusted.

In my case, I have no hate for the gay person, but I do have a strong dislike for how they act out their sexuality in an intimate way. In your article you said something about people are ignorant about homosexuality. Perhaps you could help me become more informed about your lifestyle, by responding to this short rambling.

Candace: How is it even any of your business what two people do when they are intimate? Why not keep your mind out of other people’s bedrooms for a change? It’s simply none of your business what two people do in the privacy of their own lives. If you dislike it, don’t think about it. Imposing your beliefs on someone’s private life is just plain unAmerican.

I do hope this letter has helped you to better understand my “lifestyle” as a lesbian. I hope you have arrived at this place better informed of the truly dull, day-in and day-out routine that faces gays and lesbians. I know you were expected tales of wild sex and other tidbits of lasciviousness. I hate to disappoint you my friend, but I’m just as dull as you are.

Blessings, Candace Chellew, Editor

Editor:

I have been following your website for over 2 years now and it is SUCH a blessing. I have read many of the issues and avidly look forward to the next one.

I have found another source out on the internet for my gay christian brothers and sisters that they might find as another blessing. It is the Born-A-Gayns online TV show which is streamed in RealPlayer format and is quite interesting. It is produced by a gay Christian brother out of the West Hollywood Church.

Robert