Here’s a fas­ci­nat­ing, heart­warm­ing, and heart­break­ing video about being queer and whether it’s also pos­si­ble to have a faith.

Inter­est­ing­ly, my for­mer reli­gion makes an appear­ance just to show the world how hor­ri­ble it is. Jeho­vah’s Wit­ness­es are not accept­ing of LGBTQ peo­ple. Joshua, a gay man that is fea­tured in the video, explains how he was dis­fel­low­shipped (or excom­mu­ni­cat­ed) and sub­se­quent­ly com­plete­ly shunned by his fam­i­ly. The sto­ry of the mus­lim woman is just as dis­turb­ing as she tries to find a mar­riage of con­ve­nience so that her fam­i­ly does­n’t dis­own her.

It’s sto­ries like these that push me towards agnos­ti­cism and athe­ism. How could a lov­ing god expect you to shun some­one because of who they love? Why would a lov­ing god pun­ish some­one for some­thing so deeply per­son­al and intrin­sic to who they are, such as their sex­u­al­i­ty?

So does god real­ly hate peo­ple who are LGBTQ? I have no inter­est in a god that does.