Religion

Mandy wrote a very good post on religion and relationships that got me thinking about writing this post.

Some of you know that # 12 on my deal breaker list is “Bible thumpers or people who try to get me to go to church with them or convert me to their religious affiliation.”

Let me explain why I said that.

When I was a child my parents always dragged me to church. This wasn’t a church of any affiliation – just a little old one- room country church with what we called a "preacher".
(Picture Footloose, here) I had to go to church every Sunday with them until I was in high school and could make my own decisions (so they said). Things that happened with this church and the people in this church are far from what I think religion is. One thing that happened was at the time, my sister was growing up in the hippie era and so of course she had a boyfriend (on the sly because our father was very strict and wouldn’t allow her to date) who was in a band and who smoked grass. Well, my father (who was a deacon in the church) found out and forbid my sister to see him. He tried to lock her in the house and tried to get him thrown in jail. She ran away –twice. He found her. When he did he had the minister on hand to preach the word of the lord to her while my father beat her. I know this because I ran away from my mother who was trying to keep me from knowing what was going on. I remember that day like it was yesterday running around the side of the house and seeing the preacher with his bible open preaching away while my father beat my sister with a closed fist. I never forgot it.

What also happened was one of the preacher's sons molested me when I was six. He now has 5 daughters and I have always wondered if he molested them, too. He married the daughter of my parent’s best friends.

Eventually the minister had an affair with another woman in the church and his wife left him.

Fast forward to my last long term relationship where my lover left me right before we were supposed to get married in Hawaii. When we met she told me she was a very religious person and went to church regularly. I eventually started to go to this church with her. I liked it – for awhile. I thought I was finally at peace with the whole religion thing. The pastor was gay in a primarily straight church who he was “out” to and they welcomed him and gays in the congregation. I got close to him and the church – I still miss him to this day, in fact, have thoughts of going back.

This is why I can’t right now.

First, we asked him to marry us in the church and he wouldn’t – I suspected he was afraid of pissing off his primarily straight congregation. Then, we broke up and my ex insisted on me quitting the church because it was her church first and therefore she had seniority. I didn’t want to go anyway because I wasn’t about to sit in there near her and her new gf.

I did try to go for awhile. In fact, I met the pastor several times for coffee. I felt like I could always talk to him as a friend. I thought he was a friend. Maybe he still is. But, what really hurt was when this event happened and I wanted to take up a collection in the church for this person’s family (they didn’t even have money to bury the poor guy) and the pastor said that the church already had so many donations for other things we couldn’t do it. He was right because every time I went it seemed I was hit up for money for various other funds. Hey, I will tithe – don’t get me wrong and donate food and clothes to the needy and even work but I started to feel like they saw dollar signs every time I walked into that place. So, I quit for good. Later I found out he married my ex and her new girlfriend in the church.

So, that’s #12 in a nutshell and why I feel that this bumper sticker is important.