RE: Finding a balance between being out and accepting other people's uncomfortableness with being gay
Thanks! I really appreciate your comments. Interestingly enough, I still consider myself a Christian :) My main take away after years of struggling with it, was that Christianity was more about living the type of life that Jesus taught (through his parables and his examples), than about following a set of rigid rules of right vs. wrong. As you said "If any of us are making that difficult for you or anyone else, we've missed some key points of our Faith". I totally agree!
I really do feel that we will get to a point where a lot more people will be accepting of homosexuality, but people need to be able to get to that point as they feel comfortable. There are probably a lot of people that won't get to that point in this lifetime, and in my opinion that is totally OK.
Yeah, I'm definitely not going to interpret the Bible for you or what Christianity is more or less about, that's definitely a personal journey - nor am I going to question your Faith; I don't have the power to look at someone's heart nor would I judge it on one aspect of an individual. There sure are a lot of people who are more than willing to give it a go though :P
Obviously, in the Old Testament there is the law, which is fairly rigid. In the New Testament, Jesus made it more grey - James 4:17, "Therefore to him that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin." I share that verse in agreement with you that its not necessarily a rigid set of rules of right vs. wrong.
If you were to ask me point blank, I'd be very upfront with you about my conviction about it but I would also point out that its not my role or position in life to control or manage how other people live their lives - and I think that is really important to reaching some level of understanding where we all can live peacefully without having to have all the same convictions on everything.
Regardless of my personal beliefs and what I decide to do (or not do), I have homosexual friends... when I see them I slap them on their behind and tell them they're looking good, to which they usually grin or laugh. They know what my position is, but it doesn't get in the way of being friendly to each other, which is the way I would hope it could be more often than not.
And I think the Foo Fighters had an awesome response to their last run-in with Westboro Baptist Church. The damage control I have to do after they show themselves... oiye.