Anti-Gay Pastor outed on Grindr.

You can find the details of this pastor at this link here. Short version, a vocally anti-gay pastor was outed for pictures of him on Grindr, a gay dating site. He has since resigned from his church, amid what I can only imagine is a lot heartache for him and his family.

This sort of thing leaves me really torn. On the one hand it seems obvious... don't simultaneously be against gay rights and cruise for a cuddle on Grindr. On the other...

I'm going to say this because I think I'm one of the few who can without being accused of having an agenda. This is a homosexual (or bi, I suppose) man who was hiding. The reason he was probably so loud about being anti-gay was due to self loathing and fear of being even suspected. In order to avoid being bullied, he turned to bullying.

Put shortly, I don't think this is on him. I think it's on the church. Not HIS church. THE church.

THE church created a situation where a man who (I'm guessing here) felt the need to be a teacher of the people, a counselor, a guide, a guy who very likely felt like he could help and wanted to, ALSO felt the need to attack people like himself in order to do so. How many hours of self-loathing and shame went into this guy's preaching? And then to still be so driven by the fact of who he was that he felt he had to put himself out there on Grindr...

The media will (and already is) calling him "yet another conservative hypocrite." The next pastor in his church may well call him an example of the "subversive gay influence." But I doubt he is either of these things, really.

This is a human being who was made to feel so insecure in his sexuality that he actually armed his closet. Who was made to feel so ashamed of who he was that he attacked others like him just to keep attention away. This man was simultaneously a victim and a perpetrator of a system that can turn people who do not fit inside the patriarchal sexual norm into their own worst enemies in a desperate attempt to belong.

Christians, this is not a leader gone bad. He is the perfect example of why we need to change the way we, as a religion, address sexuality. I honestly don't care if you believe homosexuality is sinful or not, that is not the issue here. Because even if it were sinful, if the way we teach about sin leads to be people living lies the way this guy felt he had to, then the way we teach about sin is WRONG. Full stop.