this post is nowhere near complete

By this point, you or someone you know has probably posted a link to Dan Pearce's "I'm Christian, unless you're gay" blog post somewhere. If not, you should read it - especially if you're my father. If I recall correctly, I've said something similar to my dad before, and his response has been something to the effect of "Just because I love them doesn't mean I have to condone their lifestyle." That's actually something I agree with whole-heartedly. Just because I love the women who sell themselves for sex doesn't mean I don't think that prostitution is demeaning and that they can, in all likelihood, do infinitely better for themselves. The thing about my dad's relationship with homosexuality, however, is that while he'll be perfectly nice to your face, he'll say hateful things behind your back and post those comments all over his Facebook page. But let's get a bit closer to the point.

I used to attend a church on my college campus. Last year, the pastor there was doing a sermon on doubt and, knowing full well that I'm not a Christian, she asked me to write a slam poetry piece on the subject to perform during the service. The poem only took a few minutes to write, but it was really personal and surprisingly well-received. I'll give you some snippets:

"...now, I'm not anti-Christianity
I'm anti-Christian
anti-self-righteous evangelists like my father who say I'm going to hell because I believe in homosexual marriage and in Allah and Buddha and karma and nature and the power of thought over the power of prayer...

...how many times have I driven past one of the homeless men who frequent the I-94 exit at Sprinkle Road wishing I had some food in my car to give them, only to forget about it the next day and lather, rinse, repeat until it's too cold out for them to walk there from the shelter downtown and I've missed my chance to prove to myself how much I love people even though I judge them when they spell Hungary like the country and not like the feeling in the bottom of your heart when something is missing...

...but as much as I love people, I find it hard to put my trust in those who have to use someone else's words to explain themselves
those who can quote scripture verbatim but can't put 10, 20, 30 words from their own mind together to tell me what they really think and feel
because I find that sitting around trying to be pious and living vicariously through the Bible to be a pitiful way to live...

...but look, here I am spewing ignorant, self-righteous bull shit just like those I said I was against.
you ask me if I believe in the god created by the words of men and I say no, I believe in the men created in the thoughts of Earth."

We all have certain levels of abhorrence toward different kinds of people. For my dad, I think it's mostly homosexuals, non-Christians, and Democrats. For me, it's people like him. I realize that it's counter-productive and hypocritical, but it's the truth.

One of the reactions to expressed opinions that really gets under my skin is "oh, well, you're only such-and-such age, you can't possibly have any kind of life experience or know enough about anything to have a well-informed, intelligent thought on the subject." Ok, yea, I'll concede that this is sometimes a correct assessment, but we've all been guilty of talking out our asses at some point, regardless of age or level of intelligence. To those who think that young people don't (or can't) have well thought-out opinions, try them. Try us. We might surprise you. And to all of the young people who can't (or don't) differentiate between your/you're, then/than, and their/there/they're, open a book. You're the reason other generations think we're unintelligent.

But hey, I'm only 23. What do I know?