Aspies For Freedom

That's it?!!!

Why can't you just admit that you were wrong; that you'd been basing all your vile gays-will-burn-in-hell rubbish on a 1950s biased translation of the bible that replaced the greek word for child-rape (that should have been written 'pædophilia') with 'homosexuality'.

I think that a major, grovelling apology to all is in order. I'll start, as I am as much of a sinner in this regard as anyone.

I would like to say sorry for all the times that I thought that homosexuality was wrong; I do not think that I am any the less to blame just because of my upbringing; I will continue my efforts of the last few decades never to have a bad thought about or pre-judge anyone; I am aware that I have failed in the past I will fail in the future and I hope that I will be forgiven, but will understand if that is not the case; I also apologise for any offence I may have caused anyone by anything else I might have posted here, or said, or thought, or felt, or believed.

I believe we are supposed to accept:

That we are all sinners simply because we're human; i.e. we are not God and therefore cannot possibly know the mind of God and are therefore bound to fall short of His ideals; therefore we cannot possibly hold ourselves to be spiritually inferior or superior to any other person, because we cannot possibly know whether our sins are keeping us further from God than theirs!

That there are two categories of sin (i.e. states of being that keep us away from God) namely Spiritual (wrong beliefs) and Physical (wrong actions)

These can be either sins of commission or sins of omission. Deliberate harm or failure to do the right thing.

That's it.

Jesus was the Son of God and we are His brothers and sisters. In other words, we are all equally the children of God.

Jesus said the only two commandments were to love God and one another; all else was nit-picking.

Jesus said that the only sinful things were those where there was a failure of love. If you truly love God, and truly love your fellow beings, you would not think, believe, do or fail to do anything that would result in harm to anyone.

All His teachings were to illustrate that.

I know I have failed, in thought, word and deed. Over and over again. I know that without forgiveness I cannot go to heaven; guilt and selfishness put up a curtain between me and God that I am unable to tear down. Only His mercy can remove it. I hope. I try my best from day to day. I fail again. That is the price of being human.

And that is what I believe. That is my Christianity. Tear it down if you wish; I'm open to learning.

My best friend at primary school was gay. He and I seemed to have very similar outlooks on life - perhaps he was Aspie, too? I went to an all-girls school in my teens so I lost touch with him; I saw him briefly a few years later at Mass when my husband was in hospital after a car crash. I was pregnant with my second son, so this was 1982. He was dressed as a Goth Rocker (is there such a thing?) and was wearing more make-up than I've worn in total my entire life. He looked really glamorous! I know I haven't heard anything about him since but I wonder why I have the strongest feeling he died not long after.

Re-posted in different colours as requested!

The 'black triangle' is sometimes used to reflect the murder of LGBT individuals by the Nazis, but according to its Wiki page, its also worn by some lesbians for other anti-discrimination reasons. I've never seen it, and I've been always under the impression that its to represent the LGBT people persecuted throughout the reign of Nazism.

Rohm was gay, but murdered before Hitler went really crazy - by international standards, not mine.

Ok, maybe I've got it wrong, it was a pink triangle according to Wiki. Worn by gay inmates of concentration camps in the same way as the yellow star was worn by Jews.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_..._Holocaust

I didn't know this existed last time I was in Amsterdam, but I plan to make a point of it next time I visit. Beautiful city, it was the most refreshing experience for a young woman beginning to reject her Catholicism and socialisation of homophobia towards her own homosexuality. I never went anywhere gay in Amsterdam, but it did open my eyes a LOT.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Ac.homomonument.jpg

^^^ It doesn't want to post the image, but there's the URL to a memorial.

Definitely Hyke, its been 8 years since I was in Amsterdam. Can't wait to go back a little less easily shocked! lol

Honestly, I remember I got lost and wound up in the red light district (during the day thankfully) - I was wandering around thinking "oh this is so beautiful, look at all the canals, all the boats, all the - holy *** there's a scantily clad woman in that window" I was only 17

That summer in Holland did open my eyes totally, I was so repressed about a lot of things before then, including myself. I don't think if I hadn't went to the Netherlands I'd be so open minded sexually at the age I am now - not in terms of what I'll do in bed, but terms of thinking "ach yeah... whatever dude".

Yes! You get down on your knees and beg forgiveness boy!!!!!

Every so often I have to catch myself wiping the seat of a public toilet, as my staunchly Catholic grandma believed I'd get pregnant

I'm just back and going through threads so haven't got to the end of this one yet, but this comment struck a chord with me.  I told a male, former, friend that I'd been hit on a couple of times by other women and that I'd reacted by saying that I was very flattered, but that I wasn't interested.  The guy I told was horrified, and I had to endure some unimaginably stupid and crude comments about my attitudes to sexuality.

Generally I've found women to be much less homophobic than men.  I've wondered if it's because men tend to feel threatened in some way, I don't know.  To me, people are people, and unless I'm interested in them romantically then their sexuality, and mine for that matter, aren't particularly important.

I never understood it either. If a guy hits on me at the pub, I'm generally flattered, but tell him I'm not interested. Usually "I have a partner" is enough to deflect attention. To me its just pleasant to have someone find you attractive and so long as they're not lewd about it, does it really hurt to have the manners to say "thanks but no thanks"?

LOL!

Do you find that these homophobic nutters always assume that gay men will mysteriously find them irressistably attractive?

I ask this because I had a conversation once with a man, who is fortunately no longer training for ministry, about the fact that I had been invited in for a cup of tea and a chat by my new neighbours who happened to be two gay men.  The man I was talking to was strongly opposed to our church blessing civil partnerships and when I asked him if he would have accepted that invitation if they were his neighbours he said, "Well, of course it's different for you - you're a woman!"  To me, the clear implication of what he said was that my neighbours wouldn't fancy me, but they would fancy him!

I've told girls who do the "eww, lesbian" thing "please don't flatter yourself". Funny how they're allowed to be insulted, but I'm not. There are very few women I look at and think 'phwoar', and of those I do, they're not little preening dolly birds.

Okay, so this is really really stupid in the grand scale of things, but I think in some ways it really shows the divide between American/British acceptance of expressions of same-sex affection.

DON'T ASK but I'm watching The Ricki Lake Show (ok ok I admit it, its my favourite show, EVAR, I LIED about Terminator to earn respect *sob*) and the show is called 'Straight or Lesbian?' Basically its these 'straight' women who have bi/lesbian friends that they've developed a crush on, and they've taken them onto national TV to announce that they want to kiss their friend. Which is fair enough. Its *** TV and its nothing I've not done wth 'straight' friends, but its an American chat show. Go figure.

But then, the girls that do kiss... they just totally cut it, even though they've obviously filmed it. A lesbian wants to kiss her best male friend, and they show that. And I don't mean a peck, I mean, major face eating going on.

How stupid is that? I know its a crappy TV show, but come ON! They'd show that in the UK!

One of my exes was incredibly homophobic. I met her at a pretty awful point in my life and even though I was relatively cool with being gay by that point, it was probably the worst person I could have wound up with.

I don't know to this day what that woman's problem was but she loathed anything gay, particularly lesbian. Now I personally don't bother with the gay scene or really hang out with many other lesbians, and I don't really take part in gay culture a lot... as in, recreational stuff. I take part in gay politics vehmently because it has an impact on all our lives. But insofar as watching crap like the L Word, no - but then, I wouldn't watch Desperate Housewives etc either.

But my ex... if I did anything remotely 'dykey', that was it, she'd go off on one. I quite like Sarah Waters, but I like Victorian period drama anyway. If I watched an adaptation of a Sarah Waters novel, she'd go off on one. I remember when I saw Resident Evil, and Michelle Rodriguez was running around in her commando uniform, and yeah... ok, I'm easy, you put a hot olive skinned brunette in a uniform of any kind, give her a bit of attitude... yeah, I'll gawp at her. Big deal. So I have a type, so maybe it is a little stereotypical, big f*cking deal!!!

Horrible thing was, it rubbed off on me for ages. And I did become like that. I used to have a rainbow sticker on my old bedroom window; she took that down. But the weird thing was, the girl started cutting her hair shorter and shorter and dressing more and more stereotypically lesbian when we were together, and for me, thats a turn off. On one hand she loathed her community, when saddest fact is that it was the same community that would have offered her most protection. I never understood that. She was older than me, had played the field and did the whole lesbian scene thing. I think my ex equated lesbian networks with promiscious behaviour. To me, this makes sense - don't date someone who you meet in a bar or club. Date someone who doesn't spend their life in a pub. I do drink and like being in the pub with my mates, but I wouldn't want to be with someone who saw the club scene as every weekend's spot to be. Doesn't matter whether you're same sex or opposite sex.

Last I heard, she's still the same way. Oddly enough, she's also single

Oh, and when I said that I didn't find her attractive because of how she dressed, I got all this sh*t thrown at me about liking 'tomboyish Yanks' and all these weird sub-cultures that I would never have attested anything to. One girl I quite like looks like a cross between Britney and Pink. And I find her extremely attractive. Go figure for her stereotype of my only going for 'anything Hispanic'

Off but relative to the topic in a vein - my family in the US have been trying to get me to emigrate since... pffft well they've been grooming me since I was a kid to emigrate. Every time I've b*tched I hate Scotland, they've been offering to buy me a one way ticket. Its nearly happened twice, but anyway. My aunt in FL has two houses (well, one, split into two) and offered me a one way ticket and use of the spare house rent free until I found a job or started university there. At 20, when I was seeing psycho lady. And I was obviously excited, because it was a fresh start. I was saying to her she could come over etc, and then the 'you have a thing for f*cking Yanks/Hispanics/f*cking dykes' crap came out. When that wasn't working, she played the good old back up card of homophobia, because the offer only extended to me. Therefore they must be homophobic because you know, the offer of getting their seriously ill brother's only daughter into the country she would have been born into anyway must extend to her too. Fair enough they are Republican voting old schoolers but tbh I'm not into the whole taking girls home whilst relatives sleep next door thing. Its kinda... just no.

Apparently after I dumped her, she started seeing a rich American living in London. Who dumped her arse too.

Just an extremely toxic, sad woman who hasn't gotten over that 'world owes me a living' complex.

Oddly enough I started seeing my recent ex because she seemed so drama free by comparison. So far I've learned, for me:

1) Must not be totally preoccupied by their sexual orientation

2) Must be out, because whilst you might be happy in Gum Drop Mountain, it sucks for those who have to concede to the 'oh is your friend' crap

3) If you must have a temper, please have some anger management plan in place

4) If you must be crazy, please try not to drive me crazy as well. I just had my head put back together

5) Must like South Park, be an Aspie and Christian. Oh wait, I'm in the wrong thread...

Seriously though... one sane woman on this side of the Atlantic, at least whilst I'm on this side of it!!!!!! And before anyone goes off at the 'sane' comment, I'm more than happy to give you a full breakdown of reasons why most of my exes seriously need some kind of therapy. I'm not joking when I refer to being driven damn near crazy by most of them. Fair enough I know my Ms Right isn't here, but can someone please send me a Ms Right Now who doesn't come with more baggage than Terminal 5????