Growing up in a society where religion has absolute
power, and religious practices are at the centre of our
everyday lives, I learnt to respect it and live by it.
Ever since I was little, I was taught what I should and
should not do, the way I should behave as a woman and as
a Christian. I was lucky enough to be the rebellious
type, and I had a hard time accepting all those social
conventions and abiding by them, but simply rejecting
them was not such an easy thing to do. Discovering my
attraction to those of the same sex has put me in a
battle with my values and religious beliefs. They say
what is hard is not to learn, but to ‘unlearn’, and
‘unlearning’ this lie was a long journey for me. For two
years, I would reject my sexual orientation and would
battle it, and some people had to suffer along the way.
Fortunately, I came
out of this a winner, unlike many of the other girls
struggling with their sexual orientations in Lebanon and
other Arab countries.
I get asked a lot:
“how can you be a Christian and a lesbian at the same
time?” For many people, being both is somewhat
contradictory, but I certainly don’t agree with that. I
learnt to reconcile between my faith and sexual
orientation because I was not ready to give up on any of
the two. I was taught that religion is about freedom and
love; it’s about respecting our differences and never
judging one another. The church has done its share of
mistakes in the past, and is still doing so, but the
church is composed of humans, and humans do make
mistakes. We are the church, and if we expect change, we
should do it by ourselves; we should do it from within. |
