Dear White Evangelicals,

Shut up, and listen for once in your self-righteous lives. I'm sorry, that was harsh, but it needs to be said by someone, and as someone who grew up with you, was you, lives with you, and has to deal with you every day of my life, it needs to be said. I get it. You're terrified. You see that the world has started to find you unpalatable, tasteless, and of no cultural, moral, or practical value except for you yourselves. You cling to your own and preach only for your own. You've trapped yourself in a bubble and feel the walls closing in. You've attached yourself to a man who is only using you to legitimize hatred that you've had in your closets, pretending that it isn't there, lying to the people who stumble upon it and question why someone who claims to be a messenger of love would have these thoughts about another human being. Instead of facing your ugliness, you're lashing out.

I'm not having any of it. I am a queer person of faith. I would imagine you have no idea how long it took me to have confidence in being able to say that after years of you tearing me down for it, but here I am. I am gay. And I am a Christian, and no matter what you say about one or the other, I will always be both along with every other queer and gender non-conforming person of faith. No statements or petitions will be able to have any effect on my status as a human being. You summarize all the reasons why myself and every other queer person in America and around the world as a whole are unbeautiful as human souls and "short sighted alternatives" to what people are meant to be in your eyes in fourteen points. In what world do you think you have that right?

I don't recognize the things that made me fall in love with my faith in your words or your actions. You go out of your way to put people down, to remind them that they may be people but they're lesser people than you are. You go out of your way to use people for your gain and then act like the victim when people call you on it. You are the epitome of undeserved arrogance.

Do you want to know why people look at people of faith so poorly, why people scoff when you ask them if they want to go to church, or why people look at you with disdain when you say the name, "Jesus?" It's not because of Jesus; I'll tell you that. It's because of you. It's because you have decided to take it upon yourself to determine when people are worth love and happiness based on values that you've made up yourself. I am not the problem with America. Queer and trans people are not the problem with America. Women are not the problem, people of color are not the problem, poor people are not the problem. You are the problem.

It's not me; it's you.

Sincerely, one of many short sighted alternatives.