God & Gays: Questions, Questions

One of my oldest and closest friends and I have an ongoing dialogue about God, the gay community, and we invariably find ourselves with far more questions than answers.  To be fair, my primo tends to raise most of the questions, while I blog about trying to find the answers :-) 

So for today, this historic Martin Luther King Day which also marks the 2nd inauguration of our first black President who is the first President to ever come close to acknowledging in an important public forum that gays might deserve the same rights as white men, I'm just going to post the questions and comments from my friend that raise more questions.  They deserve some time and thought.

"I'll remind you that I believe that man created god in his own image.  The men who created our brand of god were highly homophobic, so naturally they created the necessary god and sin to support their way of thinking. So, why do you want to believe in that god and want to form part of his church? This god that was invented by homophobic men has rejected you for over 5000 years."

"The same god whom LGBT Christians tout as being a god of love and compassion is the same god who sits around twiddling his thumbs while his congregation apparently misrepresents his intentions.  In the meantime, people like ****** died a tortured, agonizing death in solitude because their parents cannot find  the love and compassion to share his suffering with their friends."

". . . I wish every LGBT who is out now could have lived in any major city in the USA in the mid to late 80's as those of us who were out then did, watching all of our friends die (of AIDS) in a world of no support.  The Church had a unique moment in history to put its love and compassion into practice and chose not to.  F*** them and the god they believe in - I'll create my own god."

"I watched so many men die alone in hospital corridors.  I held hands with men who were too weak to even tell me what their names were - like it really mattered moments before death.  When someone clutches you and you hear the death rattle in their throat and they expire, well, you just have to wonder where God was in all of that."

"But where is God in all this?  His followers are human and therefore imperfect.  God, however, is God and supposedly perfect.  What perfect parent sits around for thousands of years watching his people become more and more oblivious to his message?  A parent seeing a child about to harm himself does something to prevent it at some point.  Oh, but wait, thankfully, we have a story in Genesis to explain all that - right. Tree of Knowledge, free will, okay, check, got it.  All clear now."

Lots of folks out there with these questions, and I don't think pat answers and "pretty phrases" are going cut it.  Time for some serious thinking.