Straight Woman Converts To Christianity, Says Coming Out As Christian Harder Than Coming Out As Gay

A straight woman raised by atheists says she’s found Christ, but telling the people in her life she feels is harder for her than coming out as gay is for LGBT people.

“It was my atheist family that drove me to Christianity,” declares writer Katherine Myers in a first person article at Buzzfeed. She describes her parents as “staunch, eye-rolling atheists,” and says her “urban, liberal friends” think her “faith is freakier than any sexuality.” 

“In the expensively educated, ambitiously employed, liberal urban circles I’ve run in since graduating from prep school outside Washington, D.C., coming out as a Christian feels more fraught than coming out as gay. Non-straight sexual identity is assumed, accepted, or embraced. We’ve moved on, cheers. But genuine religious belief? Who does that?,” Myers laments.

Of course, more than seven out of ten Americans proudly identify as Christian, and even in “liberal urban circles” the number of Christians is far into the majority. 

Myers’ experience is her own, but she does say that her family, while rattled, accepted her choosing religion.

“Well, good for you, sweetie. Just don’t become one of those weirdos now, OK?,” she says they told her. Not the best response, but unlike countless LGBTQ youth and teens, Myers wasn’t disowned by her parents, and she hasn’t been rejected for the rest of her life. She didn’t lose her job, her apartment, or get violently attacked. 

Myers, who says she is not a Republican, nor is she “pro-life,” also doesn’t seem at all to be anti-gay. She penned a warm profile of a bi-national same-sex couple last year. But she laments that dating has been “touch and go.”

“Classy lady that I am, I waited until the second or third date to discuss my faith. The right guys got it and saw the appeal; a good guy at least thought it was kind of interesting.”

Myers writes she is now living with a man who is Jewish. She claims that, “urban liberals — for all their tut-tutting over anti-intellectualism and intolerance — are actually pretty ignorant about Christianity, especially compared to Judaism. It has very little to do with God. Being culturally Christian implies social conservatism and discrimination, anti-gay, pro-life, and pro-gun political agendas. It connotes a lack of education to the point of delusion.”

 

Image by Robby McKee via Flickr and a CC license
Hat tip: The Frisky