This post is going to complain about specifically christians, since that is who i have experienced. There will be mentions of other relgions, but thats the main one here. Just as a disclaimer, i do not inherently HATE christians, or relgious people. Some relgious people just so happen to be bad people though. Also note: I really didn't have time to actually quote the bible, i may come back and edit but for now this is it.
So at this point, i think most people have heard about the two big issues in the church. Sexual incidents and discrimination. The discrimination is broken down into two parts, homophobia and sexism. I can imagine there is a racical aspect as well, but as a little white boy i don't have the knowledge to comment, sorry. I will mainly talk about homophobia in this writing. Orginially, I brought up the sexual incidents occuring by how the power system is set up, but tbh thats not really on topic lol. (it's at the bottom if you care)
People in the church justify homophobia usually use quotes from the bible to 'prove' their views. One example would be (got this from gpt since school sucks)
Romans 1:26 - 27 "For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature; and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error."
This is a very kinder worded version of that text, but some other ones are quite explict that male male relations are NOT okay. There are a few more, but i'll have them on the right side here just so you don't have to read through them. JUST AS A NOTE IF YOU ARE READING THIS!!! I HAVE NOT CHECKED THESE QUOTES YET, DON'T TRUST ME IM A FRAUD
Last quote thats actually important would be this one (among many lol)
1 Corinthians 6:9 - 10
"Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God."
These quotes basically explain that being gay is a sin, being trans is a sin, etc. And since all sin is equal, queers are on the same level as murderers according to the bible. These people will also not be sent to heaven. This makes christians very motivated to 'save' them, trying to remove the gay (not sure how to word that lol) from the person. This results in sometimes pastoral visits to the gay indiviual where they dicuss their desires in a most likely unhealthy manner.
Since their desires are pushed aside by these christians trying to help save them, they often become ashamed of their life. They view it as sinning, and its copletely outside of their control. This phase can go on for a while, but at some point it reaches a boiling point. The indivuial either a) becomes 'straight' and is cured! Everyone cheers and hugs and they live their life as a shell of themselves, but they can still go to church! (this option generally leaves the person dead by suicide, since the guilt is often overwhleming.) or b) They they denouce the church, leave, and be super gay (lol). Thankfully my experience was not this violent or stressful, and I left the church a while ago (for other reasons that we'll discuss later.)
The church, after hiding or kicking out all queers (in some cases) will just go on with this cycle. They will preach anti-gay messages at times, and make more homophobic followers. Even if churches that are 'accepting,' the biases can be so strong that gay people will never reach a place of authority. Having no one with their interests in mind makes it very difficult to change the system.
If you were to ask a homophobic christian why they are not allowed in the church, I've generally gotten the answer that they are allowed in the church. Which, is a confusing answer. As I put in the title, they actually mean "Gay people are allowed in church, as long as they aren't gay." This is clearly flawed of course. As stated before, same-sex desires are a sin, but as their own beliefs state: everyone is a sinner and all sin is equal. This can get very messy very fast. What makes being gay different than other forms of sin? They would reply its not unequal, but its the fact that they are willingly sinning over and over again. This is disobeying God, and therefore is a conflict of interest in a way. Although, there are plenty of unfriendly charaters in the church who get a pass for some strange reason. When agrueing with these type of people, the logic is usually circluar.
I hate how christians act. As if because they follow god, they are now a good person. Just like that, follow jesus = good person, doesn't follow jesus = awful person. They will use this against anyone they dislike which is insane. I'm going to paraphrase, but one pastor i've had said "I think these shootings would stop happening if people just followed jesus and went to church." That line of thinking makes me endlessly upset. This implies any issue is caused by a lack of faith. This means your misunderstandings, accidents, emotions would all be magically fixed if you were to just follow jesus. (sorry friend, you're gay so you can't do that - love, the church) This is extermely arragent and stupid. Bonus points if they say 'not that i care' or something along those lines afterwards.
If you take this logic a step farther, this means members of another religion is also just as bad. These christians think it is there job to convert everyone to their side. Which... it literally is according to the bible so i can't be too upset. But those who take it too far bother me. This also makes it seem like Christians are just naturally better than all other people in the world. They are simply a nicer, kinder, near perfect type of people. But don't worry, they are humble too, because we all sin the same. Just not you. You sin more than me.
I don't hate queers or christians. I was christian and am gay lol. Many christians are extremely kind and loving. The ones who actually follow the 'love everyone unconditionally' are the real ones for real. There are also a few lgbtq churches which I haven't been to, but i hope they are a good solution. They are not free of issue of course, but I think its a kind first step.
According to wikipedia, "From 2001 to 2010, the Holy See examined sex abuse cases involving about 3,000 priests, some of which dated back fifty years." That took me about 1 minutes to find off of google. Isn't that kinda insane? (These cases were in the *cathlic chruch* which has slightly different issues and structure than the other flavors of jesus. Either way, i'll be sort of lumping them together here, sorry lol.) But the way they are set up makes it very easy to prey of not just vuriable people, but young children as well. Priests and other figures are seen as authority, and you will naturally seek to please them in most cases. Not all of these people act this way, but some act as if *they* are the god you are to be worshiping. If you disobey the priest, you disobey god. And you wouldn't want to go to hell now, would you?