One More Brick

Many ex-Christians get questions from baffled people still immersed in religion about how they became an “ex.” What led them to decide that they were no longer Christians? I have heard varying answers and they are all as different as the people answering them. For me, it was not one thing, as you can see from this blog, but more of a journey in steps. Every step I took away from Christianity though, I felt a bit more light and a bit more free. Ironically, this is how Christians say they feel when the find god. I found that the more I learned the truth about religion, the more relieved I became that the little voice of reason has always been right; I was just not paying attention. I found it liberating to let go of the guilt, worry about after-life, worry about being "left behind" and all the other things that go along with Christianity.

I like answering questions with one quick, easy answer. Maybe I got that from being a Baptist: “The bible says so” or “humans are not always meant to know god’s plan for us” or, along those lines, “We just have to have faith that god knows what is best.” These sound like answers if you are not a questioner, but after a while they sound like NON- answers and I began to think they were lame when I was a teenager. So, I began to see a few things wrong with religion, which made me wonder what else was wrong with religion. For a long time, while I was raising my kids, I did not have time to think about god or religion; I just knew that I was NOT going to church anymore. (Later, in another blog, I will tell a story about how I attempted, one last time, to get back into the church) However, I did not label myself agnostic, atheist or anything really, I just did not think about it.

One of the many events that I witnessed in the good old bible-belt that gave me a huge push away from the chrisitian church and everything it stands for was the story about the Fleming Island High School senior who was not allowed to wear a tuxedo in her yearbook picture At the heart of this story is homophobia, discrimination, intolerance and outright arrogance.

Read Story here:
 Short Version of the Story
 Longer More Detailed Version of the Story

Unfortunately, I know Sam Ward, the principal of this school very well. I worked there as a teacher two years after this happened. He firmly believes that his religion is the only right one. He runs the school like a Nazi camp and he is one of the most evil, rude, close-minded people I know. The only reason he would not allow this girl to wear a tuxedo in the picture is because he KNEW she was a lesbian. Even though 200 people showed up to support her, Kelli was not allowed to have her picture in the yearbook. I was working for a newspaper at the time of this story and I was asked to write about it for the paper. I naively believed I could write a story in support of Kelli Davis. I found out I was wrong. So, I quit my job at the newspaper. The editor of the paper wanted me to say that students nowadays need to know how to conform and how to follow dress code (as you can see from the article, there was no written dress-code for senior yearbook pics, just a tradition). I refused to write anything like that. I always taught my kids (and students when I taught at Fleming Island High School) that changes cannot be made in the world by conforming. If something is wrong, we need to stand up and say it is WRONG!

While this story was big in the Clay County news, I heard so many chrisitians run their mouths about Kelli and how she needed to be saved, turn from her “evil” ways, repent, dress like a “girl” etc… Even though I had seen Christians become evil first hand, I was blown away by how much they bullied Kelli because of her sexual orientation and the fact that she stood up for herself. I was proud of her! She had to deal with so much hate, arrogance and meanness, not just from her classmates, but from the principal of her own school, someone she should have been able to count on to protect her!

Many people saw Kelli as a rebellious teen who was just trying to break the rules. One woman, Karen Gordon, was quoted saying "When uniformity is compromised, then authority no longer holds." I have no doubt that this woman is a christian, the kind who tell their church members, “We cannot question god or the bible, but submit our wills to him.” In this extremely religious area, where most people just assume you are christian, Kelli had to walk the halls at school and be called “dumb fucking dyke” and I am sure many other rude comments by students who had heard their own “christian” parents bad-mouthing Kelli.
When are we going to learn that questioning things that are wrong is a GOOD thing? When are christians going to stop being so judgmental, evil, rude, hateful and intolerant of others? Although I had thought that perhaps the churches I had grown up in were extreme, I found that most christian are NOT good, kind, loving people. So, for me, this incident added one more brick to the wall I had building between me and “god.” If this was what god was about, I wanted nothing to do with him!

P.S. Sam Ward still sits his big fat ass in his cushy office at FIHS. I am sure many teachers and parents will jump for joy when he is no longer spreading his poison to high school students.

Disclaimer: I purposely do not capitalize religious words. I don't think of them as proper nouns. Whatever!